Although former President Donald Trump has very publicly distanced himself from the conservative Heritage Foundation’s infamous Project 2025 plan, we should take seriously much of what the 920-page document tells us about a potential second Trump term.
For one, if Trump wins in November, he may end federal protections for grizzly bears, gray wolves and the greater sage grouse, as the document proposes removing the three animals from the federal government’s list of endangered species.
A politically-motivated group making decisions about protected and endangered species has the potential to create a ripple effect of problems.
Environmental groups warn removing the species from protected lists would open them up to being hunted or killed by traps meant to protect farms and ranches while facing loss of critical habitat.
Unsurprisingly, a politically-motivated group making decisions about protected and endangered species has the potential to create a ripple effect of problems.
As Andrea Zaccardi, a carnivore conservation legal director for the Center of Biological Diversity, points out, “The proponents of Project 2025 don’t understand that the protection of species is supposed to be a science-based decision and not a political one.”
Signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1973, the Endangered Species Act allows the federal government to protect species at risk of extinction from being killed, harmed or harassed. Once the population has rebounded, the species can be delisted, which leaves protection in the hands of state governments that environmentalists argue would not take strong enough action.
Delisting endangered species is supposed to be done when federal scientists think it is no longer necessary, but it’s not unheard of to become political as well. Grizzly bears are a perfect example.
Before western expansion, the lower 48 states had over 50,000 grizzly bears, with a range from Central Mexico to the Great Plains. But by 1975, when they were officially listed as an endangered species, the number of grizzlies in the continental United States had dipped below 1,000.
Since then, they’ve been a success story, with a particularly successful effort to reintroduce grizzlies in a portion of Montana and the three states around Yellowstone National Park — the two areas where Project 2025 calls for delisting them. As of 2022, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was estimated to have 965 bears, while the Northern Continental Divide in Montana was estimated at 1,138 — as much as triple the numbers in 1975.
But the population of grizzlies has not improved much in two other ecosystems in Washington state and Idaho.
Ivan London, a senior attorney at Mountain States Legal Foundation, said in an email that the grizzly bear should have never been listed under the Endangered Species Act in the first place. He argues that the government was wrong to divide the grizzly population into several ecosystems treated separately and should have considered the overall number of grizzlies in the entire United States.
“The Endangered Species Act has turned into a lever of power that federal regulators use to extend their reach onto private and state property. This allows them to police activities that they would otherwise have no authority to oversee,” London said in an email. “Several ESA listings are based on outdated or otherwise questionable information, making the regulatory decisions to list or continue listing several species simply unreasonable.
If the three species were delisted, the federal government would no longer have any say in protecting them. That would leave state governments entirely in charge of their future.
For some critics of the listing, that’s the point.
Mark Jones, national director for hunter outreach for Gun Owners of America, argues that the grizzly bear populations have rebounded enough that they should be delisted, and any effort to keep them on there is due to national politics interfering with the science. Jones, a Wyoming resident and a certified wildlife biologist, said that has “cheapened” the Endangered Species Act.
“There’s a lot of resentment in Wyoming for the federal government because it’s ignoring its own law,” he said.
Idaho and Wyoming already passed laws that would allow trophy hunting of grizzly bears if they are delisted.
But Zaccardi said there’s good reason to doubt that western states would take strong enough action. She notes that Idaho and Wyoming already passed laws that would allow trophy hunting of grizzly bears if they are delisted, while there would be strong incentives for state lawmakers to allow more killing of grizzlies and gray wolves, which will sometimes attack cattle and sheep.
“The agricultural industry is not a big fan of predators,” she said.
For now, grizzlies, gray wolves and the sage grouse are protected from trophy hunters, ranchers and real-estate developers. But that could change quickly if Trump wins in November, allowing politics to control an already politically charged policy.
Ultimately, while some of the species have met the qualifications for delisting, the species are too fragile for removal. It should be the responsibility of all involved parties to keep animals under protection until science says it isn’t needed — not left to political manifestos and economics.
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