The American burying beetle resurfaces in court next week as environmentalists challenge a Fish and Wildlife Service decision to downlist the species from endangered to threatened.
The outcome could prove particularly consequential — for the beetle, for the energy industry and for the Endangered Species Act itself. It also comes as the Trump administration starts forming its Interior Department and Fish and Wildlife Service teams that promise big environmental policy changes from their Biden administration predecessors.
“Overall, the case speaks to the importance of recognizing climate change as the dire threat to biodiversity that it is,” Eric Glitzenstein, director of litigation for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Friday, adding that “imperiled species such as the American burying beetle need and deserve the highest level of protection that the ESA has to offer.”
The conservation group brought the challenge up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after a trial judge in October of 2023 upheld the FWS’s downlisting action.
