The House Natural Resources Committee meets this week for a legislative hearing on nine bills. This package of legislation would dramatically weaken the Endangered Species Act and should be labeled the “Expanded Wildlife Extinction Package.” These bills would undermine the role of science in the listing process, transfer undue authority to state officials, make it more difficult for species to gain federal protections (and easier to lose them), and undercut citizens’ vital role in helping to enforce the law. On behalf of our millions of members and activists nationwide, the signees urge you to oppose the “Expanded Wildlife Extinction Package.”

Declaration of Carlos Carroll, Ph.D., research ecologist with the Klamath Center for Conservation Research, and Conservation Science Advisor to the Wilburforce Foundation