Trump administration says developers, loggers can kill endangered species

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik issued a memo saying the direct killing of endangered animals is not an illegal 'take' under the Endangered Species Act unless the action was 'intentionally directed' at that animal, effective immediately for agency staff nationwide. Nesvik's own examples: a ship that strikes a whale hasn't taken it, and felling a tree with bats roosting inside isn't a take unless the point was to kill the bats.

The memo builds on an earlier finalized rule that excluded habitat destruction from the legal definition of harm, so long as logging or draining wetlands didn't directly kill animals outright. Wildlife advocates say the two changes together gut the permitting framework industries have used for decades to account for harm to species like grizzly bears.

Legal experts noted the approach leans on Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in a 1995 Supreme Court case that the majority rejected 6-3. The Fish and Wildlife Service declined an interview request and referred questions to the Interior Department, which did not respond.

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