MISSOULA, Mont.— The Center for Biological Diversity notified the Trump administration today of its intent to sue over the government’s approval of a new expanded livestock grazing plan. The plan would harm imperiled wildlife on public lands across the Western United States and would open iconic landscapes, including Grand Canyon National Park, to cattle.

“Trump is bowing to the livestock industry’s destructive demands to turn our shared wilderness into discount feedlots. We’re taking action to make sure our nation’s most vulnerable wildlife don’t pay the price,” said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation legal director at the Center. “Grazing on America’s public lands harms cherished animals like grizzlies, wolves and steelhead. This plan to let cattle trample over millions more acres of public lands completely ignores these imperiled species, and that’s illegal.”

Trump’s new grazing plan, implemented through a memorandum of understanding signed in March by federal public land management agencies, will open up to 24 million acres of U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands to grazing where cattle are presently not allowed. It would use emergency authorities to fast-track grazing permits.

A BLM map shows the plan would open the westernmost portion of Grand Canyon National Park to grazing. This part of the park includes a stretch of the Colorado River that provides habitat for endangered razorback suckers. The BLM is also targeting sensitive landscapes in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado, and Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona.

Numerous other areas that provide critical habitat designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as necessary to recover endangered species are also targeted for additional cattle grazing.

Expanding grazing on federal public lands risks harm to ecologically important carnivores, like federally protected grizzly bears and wolves, which are too often killed because of conflicts with livestock. Cows also damage public lands and streams that provide habitat for imperiled fish and birds by trampling banks and streambeds, stripping vegetation to bare soil, blocking tree regeneration and polluting water with feces, urine, sediment and cattle carcasses. Livestock grazing degrades ecosystems across the West and is a top threat to animals and plants at risk of extinction.

Given the harms this plan would inflict on federally protected species, the Trump administration should have consulted with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service to ensure the plants and animals were safeguarded. It failed to do so.

Livestock damage is pervasive across the West. Half of 2,400 stream miles of endangered species habitat surveyed by the Center since 2017 show significant damage from livestock. The surveys of 213 Forest Service and BLM grazing allotments in Arizona and New Mexico show damage to critical habitat from authorized, unauthorized, trespassing and feral livestock.

“The federal grazing program is already a disaster for endangered species and the places they live,” said Zaccardi. “Expanding grazing across 24 million more acres will make that devastation even worse and likely drive more animals and plants to extinction.”

While the harm to wildlife is likely to be significant, any benefit to the livestock industry will be tiny. Grazing on public lands accounts for just 2% of the nation’s beef cattle.

The agencies named, which include the USDA, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Commerce, Forest Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, have 60 days to respond to today’s notice of intent to sue.