The animal species imperiled by Trump's war on the environment
Climate countdown
The animal species imperiled by Trump’s war on the environment
A humpback whale breaches in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration has withdrawn regulations aimed at preventing humpbacks and other creatures from being entangled in nets off the west coast.
Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images
Despite a grim outlook for American biodiversity, Trump has lifted protections for at-risk animals as part of his aggressive rollback of environmental rules
75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer
by Paola Rosa-Aquino
Main image:
A humpback whale breaches in the Pacific Ocean. The Trump administration has withdrawn regulations aimed at preventing humpbacks and other creatures from being entangled in nets off the west coast.
Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images
The prognosis for biodiversity on Earth is grim. According to a sobering report released by the United Nations last year, 1 million land and marine species across the globe are threatened with extinction – more than at any other period in human history.
According to a recent study, about 20% of the countries in the world risk ecosystem collapse due to the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, a result of human activity in tandem with a warming climate. The United States is the ninth most at risk.
Despite this desperate outlook, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive rollback of regulations designed to protect the environment, has lifted protections for America’s animals. It has shrunk several national monuments and opened up a huge amount of federal land for oil and gas drilling, coalmining and other industrial activities – actions that conservationists warn could imperil species whose numbers are already dwindling and that are core to the health of our ecosystems.
Here we look at some of the animals most at risk from Trump’s rollbacks.
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