Congress are on the brink of ending iconic American wildlife

Congress is advancing a bill that guts Endangered Species Act funding and pushes iconic American wildlife closer to extinction.

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Republicans in Congress are on the brink of enacting a plan that could spell the end of much iconic American wildlife. The House Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill for Fiscal Year 2026, which begins October 1, that would gut funding for the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and even specifically strike funds to stop extinction of certain creatures that have already been driven to the brink, largely because people have infringed on their habitat.

Congress must enact a spending plan for the coming nearby the end of September or the government will shut down. If it misses the deadline, it could extend funding temporarily. But if the House Republican plan gets approved, the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS); which is charged with enforcing the ESA for animals, birds and plants; would see a $150 million cut in funding. (The National Marine Fisheries Service enforces the law for aquatic life.)

ESA has been one of the most successful federal programs since enactment in 1973, with 99 percent of listed species surviving and many brought back to their rightful place in the environment. Successful recoveries include our national bird, the bald eagle, and the iconic American alligator. Listed species get protection against killing and harassment and safeguards against interfering with their habitat. The government is required to consider only science when designating or removing genuses for listing as threatened or endangered. It it not allowed to consider economics or politics.

Even before any cuts are considered, FWS “only receives bout 1/3 of the funds it needs” to enforce the act, said Kate Dylewsky, assistant director of government affairs at the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI). While the appropriations bill pending before the Senate would keep ESA operating at about current levels, the House bill would not only cut overall spending, it includes a series of riders barring help for specific species. (Members of Congress sometimes include policy provisions known as “riders” to must-pass legislation such as spending bills to circumvent the normal legislative process, even though technically, congressional rules prohibit it.)

The House bill would also cut FWS' budget for listing species by more than half, $15 million, though the agency “faces a backlog of hundreds of species waiting to be listed, Dylewsky said.

The House bill includes 12 riders that would remove specific protections to endangered or threatened species despite scientific evidence showing they need it. Specifically, the bill would:

• Bar FWS from even proposing, let alone finalizing, a rule to protect the greater sage-grouse. This bird lives only in sagebrush areas in western states but is boxed into a lesser habitat because of farming and energy development. Survival of this ground-nester is “(t)hreatened by energy development and the effects of invasive plants in much of its remaining range,” according to the Audobon Society.

• Block an already-approved plan to protect the northern long-eared bat, which was added to the endangered species list in 2022. FWS developed a plan last year to save this flying mammal, native to most of the United States and Canada, because it faces extinction from white-nose syndrome, an infection caused by an invasive fungus. But “I think some stockholders have concerns about restrictions on forest management that could limit habitat destruction,” noted Mary Beth Beetham, director of legislative affairs for Defenders of Wildlife.

• Remove the gray wolf from the ESA list. These predators keep the ungulate population in check but farmers complain that they eat livestock. While efforts to protect them have increased their population, they still have not recovered to their rightful place. 

Other riders would end protection for the lesser prairie chicken (which is already squeezed into less than 10 percent of its original habitat in the Southwest), the North American wolverine (though apparently fewer than 300 of these weasels remain in the lower 48 states), grizzly bears, fish in captivity, and various plants. “Those species are being chosen for political reasons, not scientific reasons,” Dylewsky lamented, as the Trump administration wants to use land for resource extraction instead of protecting it and its feral inhabitants. Another rider would end all restrictions on lead ammunition and fishing tackle, even though lead fragments can poison predators up the food chain and even humans who eat meat or fish killed or wounded by it.

Congress has to pass appropriations by October 1, though it could extend government operations temporarily through a continuing resolution. Both the House and Senate are likely to vote on their versions this month. The best to hope for would be the Senate bill, which at least keeps programs pretty much running as they are, wildlife advocates say. “When it gets to the floor, (the House bill) probably actually will get worse. We have seen additional amendments in past years” Beetham warned.

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Want to help and protect the ESA? You can contact your US represenatives and senators in September by phone, email, at public events such as townhalls, or in person. Tell them in your own words that you'd prefer the Senate language, why wildlife is important to you and that you don't want the cuts to ESA or any specific riders delisting a species. Congress is so narrowly divided that every vote matters.

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