OUR DAILY THREAD: A Dangerous Species Acts
Ecophobic maniac
On June 25, the Trump Regime announced an ironic, perhaps even ghoulish partnership with the “de-extinction” company that supposedly brought dire wolves back from the abyss. As the journal Science explained at the time, Colossal Bioscience didn’t revive the extinct species, it “edited the gray wolf genome in an attempt to imbue the animals with characteristics reminiscent of the dire wolf.”
So, they did not bring back the dire wolf. Nor did they make much of a case for doing so even if they could. Science noted that “dire wolves were once an important species in ancient ecosystems, the habitats they lived in—and many of the animals on which they preyed—no longer exist.”
What they did do was generate a ton of media coverage and investor buzz for their multi-billion dollar company, which is no doubt why the Trump Regime enlisted them into an effort “to store samples from every animal and plant protected under the Endangered Species Act, which includes more than 2,300 listings worldwide.”
But, as Carl Zimmer and Catrin Einhorn also reported in the New York Times:
As more species face the risk of extinction, scientists see such biobanks as a critical backup. But concerns are also growing that the rise of genetic engineering and efforts to revive extinct species will erode support for on-the-ground conservation, which often requires protecting habitat from drilling, mining and other development.
Of course, that’s the whole point of the “partnership,” as evidenced by a new report by the same duo on Trump’s evisceration of the popular and successful Endangered Species Act:
The Trump administration on Friday moved to open the habitats of imperiled animals to farming, drilling, mining, real estate development and other activities in what environmentalists characterized as the most severe erosion of protections for wildlife in half a century.
It didn’t take much to upend the 53 year-old law. They just redefined the definition of “harm” to exclude anything that doesn’t directly injure or harm an animal. Up to today, the law forbade “any significant ‘modification or degradation’ of habitat that kills or injures animals by impairing their ability to eat, shelter or breed.”
Now, “harm” has been pared down to direct physical injury of a protected species. It’s still illegal to purposefully injure or kill an individual animal, but it’s no longer illegal to destroy their habitat, their nests or the ecosystems that support them. Zimmer and Einhorn gave three good examples of what the change means going forward:
Piping plovers, for instance, need undisturbed beaches to nest and raise their young. They return to the same sites year after year, but only occupy them in the spring and summer. During winter, when the birds have migrated south, a property owner could develop a beach without immediately hurting any individual piping plovers. But come spring, the returning plovers would find themselves without a place to feed, nest and raise their chicks.
Or take red-cockaded woodpeckers, which are not migratory but require mature pine trees to hollow out the cavities where extended families roost. Even if a timber company or developer cut down those trees without causing direct injury to any birds, they could not survive without other unoccupied old trees.
Amphibians like California tiger salamanders begin their lives in seasonal ponds but move into upland burrows after metamorphosis. If a pond were drained during the summer, the salamanders that returned to the spot would not have the water they need to produce the next generation.
And, apparently, that’s where Colossal Biosciences comes in. They will collect the genetic material from piping plovers, red-cockaded woodpeckers and California tiger salamanders just in case some future iteration of our species decides they’d like to revive the species we saw fit to wipe out in exchange for a couple cents knocked-off the price of a gallon of gas. By the way, Colossal Biosciences is not altruistically trying to save species from humanity’s greed and narcissism:
The company will have the right to access the biobanked material for research, including “biotechnology development,” according to the memorandum. The agreement will remain in effect for five years, but can be unilaterally terminated by either party. If the memorandum is terminated, Colossal will retain all the samples it collected with its own funding, equipment, or personnel.
Frankly, that’s exactly what we should expect from this regime. The natural world and its plants, animals, minerals and soil have no intrinsic value to Trump. He’s the first president in some time who doesn’t live with dogs or cats. He never expresses any fondness for animals or the natural world or its awe-inspiring web of life. He doesn’t care about the environment at all … and no, pesticide-soaked golf courses don’t count.
For him and the largely Evangelical base that has long hated the Endangered Species Act, the natural world is nothing more than resources that have yet to be converted into dollars. Well, now they can get busy converting piping plovers into luxury beach homes. If nothing else, Mother Nature will have the final say when the rising seas come to collect on an account that’s badly in arrears. - jp
Trump admin scraps ‘weaponized’ wildlife rule that became ‘burden’ on American families and businesses: Burgum
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admin-scraps-weaponized-wildlife-rule-became-burden-american-families-businesses-burgum
Nature’s Ingenious Survival Strategies Are No Match for Human Destruction
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/nature-survival-human-destruction-mining-red-list-threatened-endangered-species/
Lax oversight of hog CAFOs harms endangered species, study finds
https://www.thenewlede.org/2026/07/hog-cafos-endangered-species/
Pacific gray whales facing ‘catastrophic’ die-off as climate crisis hits food supply
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/10/pacific-gray-whales-population-climate-change
Environmentalists Demand Endangered Species Act Protections for Pacific Gray Whales
https://www.asatunews.co.id/en/gray-whale-endangered-species-petition
Nonprofit sues Trump administration to learn why it’s modifying right whale speed rule
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/nonprofit-sues-trump-administration-to-learn-why-it-s-modifying-right-whale-speed-rule
Center for Biological Diversity sues over protections for queen conch
https://www.wmnf.org/queen-conch-lawsuit/
Local Conservation Groups are Set to Sue the Trump Administration Over Its Redefinition of ‘Harm’ in the Endangered Species Act
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2026/jul/10/local-conservation-groups-are-set-sue-trump-admini/
‘Many species will go extinct’: Feds’ ESA rule threatens habitat
https://www.times-standard.com/2026/07/10/many-species-will-go-extinct-feds-esa-rule-threatens-habitat/