'This insanity has to stop': Trump-Musk funding freeze puts elephants and rhinos at risk
Donald Trump's decision to cut off funding to conservation work could put some endangered species at risk from poachers, according to environmentalists.
The president froze international conservation grants dispensed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the Center for Biological Diversity threatened to sue if the funding wasn't restored to protect at-risk species, including elephants, rhinos, freshwater turtles and monarch butterflies, reported The Guardian.
“The Trump administration’s funding freeze for anti-poaching patrols and other international conservation work is maddening, heartbreaking and very illegal,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the center. “These Fish and Wildlife Service funds help protect elephants, rhinos and other animals across the globe that Americans love."
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Trump and his billionaire campaign donor Elon Musk have been gutting federal agencies through the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, but the center warned the FWS the funding freeze violated the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which requires the consideration of at-risk species in government decisions.
"No one voted to sacrifice the world’s most iconic wildlife to satisfy some unelected billionaire’s reckless power trip," Uhlemann said.
Trump attempted to weaken the Endangered Species Act during his first term and is trying to bypass conservation laws now that he's back in office to push through logging and fossil fuel projects, even if they could cause the demise of an at-risk species.
“This insanity has to stop or some of the world’s most endangered animals will die,” Uhlemann said.