Threatened species lose automatic protections under US law

The US Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to stop automatically protecting newly listed threatened species. Each threatened species will now need its own specific rule to get protections.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service used to automatically protect newly listed threatened species, which made it simpler and faster to protect them. Now, the agency must write a specific rule for each threatened species. This adds a lot of work and time, and could mean fewer or slower protections for species that need them.