Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, the landowner, and Pacific Legal Foundation, a private property advocacy group, challenged the designation, resulting in today's definition and the frog losing habitat protection in Louisiana. However, this area would need forest restoration to provide high-quality habitat. Recognizing that to secure the frog would require recovering it in additional areas, the service designated an area in Louisiana that had the ephemeral ponds the frog requires. The frog survives in one ephemeral pond in Mississippi. Supreme Court that said the service needed to define the term habitat in relation to the highly endangered dusky gopher frog. The definition stems from a 2018 decision by the U.S. The rule change also fails to take into account areas that could accommodate species that will relocate due to the climate crisis.Īs the Center for Biological Diversity explained when the change was announced in August: Fish and Wildlife Service, the definition of 'critical habitat' for an endangered species will be limited to places that could currently support such animals, not areas where they once lived and could be restored with the proper care and protections. 'President Trump has cemented his legacy as the most anti-wildlife president in history.' -Stephanie Kurose, Center for Biological Diversity

The Trump administration on Tuesday finalized a rule that wildlife advocates say will weaken the Endangered Species Act and severely limit the federal government's ability to protect habitat critical to the survival and recovery of imperiled species including grizzly bears and whooping cranes.

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