TACOMA, Wash.— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration today seeking Endangered Species Act protections for sand-verbena moths. These highly imperiled moths were denied protections in 2019 when Trump was first in office.

“These beautiful golden moths are stuck in the path of rising sea levels and will become climate change victims unless we immediately start protecting their unique habitat,” said Drew Baloga, a legal fellow at the Center. “Sand verbena moths are on the brink of extinction and should never have been denied protection. We’re not giving up on them, even if Trump has.”

The moths survive only in a handful of populations found in dunes along the Salish Sea in Washington state and on Vancouver Island, B.C. They’re dependent for every phase of their lifecycle on their namesake plant, the pretty yellow sand-verbena.

Almost all of the few remaining populations live only a few meters above sea level. Climate change models show that rising sea levels will destroy almost all this low-lying habitat by 2100 at the latest. While Endangered Species Act protections won’t stop sea-level rise, they could help safeguard existing habitat while proactively developing a recovery strategy that secures and restores upland habitat.

Sand-verbena moths are threatened by a combination of habitat loss to development, climate change-driven sea-level rise and invasive species. Disregarding evidence that clearly shows the moths are imperiled, the first Trump administration decided that the species didn’t warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.

“Five years later, we’re still cleaning up the mess made by the first Trump administration’s callous attitude towards vulnerable wildlife,” said Baloga. “With Trump’s second term already wreaking havoc, it’s more important than ever to ensure that the Fish and Wildlife Service is making decisions based on science, not political whims.”