Many North Atlantic right whales, like "Caterpillar," have scarring from dangerous collisions with boats and ships. Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, taken under NMFS research permit #15488.
September 17, 2026 (Boston, MA) – A memo distributed by the Trump administration would strip a key protection from the Endangered Species Act. The administration argues that the law only protects species from intentional harm directed at a particular animal, not highly foreseeable and avoidable unintentional incidents like hitting whales with speeding ships or entangling marine life with commercial fishing lines. Since endangered species are almost always killed as a byproduct of development or other economic activity, this change would make the law nearly powerless.
“This is a dangerous, unlawful reinterpretation of a longstanding law that will drive many species to extinction if the administration enacts it,” said Erica Fuller, senior counsel at Conservation Law Foundation. “When we run over North Atlantic right whales with ships or entangle them in fishing gear lines, the whales die whether it was intentional or accidental. The same is true of countless other endangered species that are primarily killed by construction, logging, pollution, and other activities that could wipe them out.”
This radical reinterpretation poses an existential threat to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, which are killed almost exclusively as a result of accidental collisions with vessels or entanglements in fishing gear. CLF will continue to push back against the Trump administration’s unlawful attacks on the species that sustain our natural world and the reckless actions that threaten our environment, our health, and our future.
CLF experts are available for further comment.
###