Notes from the Field — September 17, 2026
The statute is the same length it was last month.
In 1973, Congress wrote a list. To “take” an endangered animal, the Endangered Species Act says, is to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect it. Ten verbs. That is the whole definition.
On September 14, the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Brian Nesvik, sent his field offices a memo saying the list applies only when an act is aimed at the animal. His examples are plain. A vessel that strikes a whale hasn’t taken it, the memo says, because the vessel’s course “was not set against the whale.” Felling a tree is not a take of the bats roosting in it unless the tree is felled to kill or capture them.
The Guardian, which reported the memo after the Center for Biological Diversity obtained it, summarizes the effect this way: logging, mining and industrial development fall outside the ban whenever animals die as a foreseeable side effect rather than as the goal. The Guardian counts more than 1,600 listed species in the path of that reading.
This is the second step, not the first. In April 2025, the Fish and Wildlife Service and its sister agency at Commerce proposed rescinding the regulatory definition of “harm,” which for decades had included wrecking the habitat an animal needs to live. The Supreme Court upheld that reading in 1995. This July, Interior finalized the rescission. Secretary Doug Burgum said agencies had spent years abusing the law to obstruct lawful land use. First the habitat came out of the word. Now the accidents.
Not one word of the statute changed. What changed is who says what the words mean.
The administration describes this as a return to the law’s plain text, and it is defending that position in court. Twenty states and the District of Columbia sued this month over the July rescission, and Senators Adam Schiff and Sheldon Whitehouse have introduced a resolution in Congress to overturn it. As of this writing, none of it has been decided.
On September 9, the Commerce Department proposed redefining “persons” for the census count that divides House seats. Five days later, the Fish and Wildlife Service redefined “take.” Neither change came from a vote in Congress.
Only a court can put the list back, and a court rules only when someone with standing asks.
The Mountain That Isn’t There Anymore — Broken Frames (Same Rule, Reversed)
Copyright 2026 — Steve Sagnotti
Sources: The Guardian, “Trump officials move to dismantle key protection for US endangered species,” September 17, 2026; Center for Biological Diversity statement, as reported by the Plumas Sun, September 20, 2026; NationofChange, citing the New York Times and Common Dreams, September 17, 2026; Federal Register, “Rescinding the Definition of ‘Harm’ Under the Endangered Species Act,” April 17, 2025; Interior Department July 2026 announcement, as quoted by NationofChange.
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