How Endangered Species May Fare Under Trump

President-elect Donald Trump continues to alarm the environmental community. His nominations of people who doubt the scientific consensus on climate change, such as Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as potential head of the Environmental Protection Agency, have led researchers and conservationists to fear that recent historic progress on combating climate change may be undone. An equally important issue that’s received little attention: Trump and his cabinet may threaten the survival of many endangered species, a pressing issue now as humans are driving a mass extinction of Earth’s flora and fauna.

Of course, Trump isn’t in office yet and his exact views on endangered species are unknown (his team didn’t respond to requests for comment); we shouldn’t pre-emptively condemn him. However, “the policies he’s pushing, the regulations put up by Obama he wants to reverse”—such as the Clean Power Plan, geared toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and factories—“those would hurt endangered species, executive director of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. “I don’t see any direct animosity toward these species, but any time they get between a corporation and its profits, Trump is [probably] going to side with the corporations.”