MISSOULA, Mont.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a request in federal court today to challenge the Trump administration’s axing of a rule that protects plants and animals listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The “blanket rule,” removed by the administration today provided automatic protections for threatened wildlife unless officials developed a specific rule for the species.

“The Trump administration wants to leave our country’s threatened species, from grizzly bears to Upper Missouri River grayling, without the critical protections they need to survive. We’re hopeful a judge will stop this,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species codirector at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Just like endangered species, threatened species need strong protections if they’re going to avoid extinction and recover.”

Today’s motion is tied to a 2025 lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Montana by the Property and Environment Research Center and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, challenging the Biden administration’s restoration of the blanket rule, which had been scrapped during the first Trump administration. The Center had intervened in that case to support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and it’s now seeking to challenge the Service’s reversing course and discarding the rule as part of that lawsuit.

The blanket rule automatically prohibits actions that kill or injure threatened species, as well as international trade. Without the blanket rule, the Service will have to issue a specific rule detailing the protections that individual species receive, and for the first time will have to consider the potential economic harm from any protections. This will create additional work for the already beleaguered agency and could mean threatened species receive little to no protection.

One such species is the Upper Missouri River grayling, which has been lost from more than 90% of its historic habitat and is down to just one native population in the Big Hole River. These beautiful relatives of salmon are under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act and could be listed as threatened in the coming months. If they are listed, the fish likely will receive less protections than they would have under the blanket rule.

In addition to today’s motion to intervene, the Center is part of coalitions challenging two other rules recently announced by the Trump administration that substantially weaken protections for the nation’s struggling plants and animals. One rule would allow industry to have greater say over designation of protected critical habitat and the other rule largely eliminates habitat protections for endangered and threatened species.