NEW YORK – A U.S. judge in New York has overturned invalid rule changes by the Trump administration that scaled back a century-old law that protects most American wild bird species, despite warnings that billions of birds could die as a result.
U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni on Tuesday criticized the administration’s argument that the Migrant Bird Convention Act applies only to the deliberate killing of birds and not to “incidental” killings from industrial activities.
“It’s not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it’s also a crime,” Caproni wrote in her statement, calling Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “That’s the letter of the law for the past century.”
Caproni, who was nominated by President Obama in New York’s Southern District in 2012, disagreed with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law.
“There is nothing in the text of the (Migratory Bird Agreement Act) that suggests that in order to fall within the ban, activity specifically must be targeted at birds,” she wrote. ‘The statute also prohibits not only intentional breeding of migratory birds. And it certainly does not say that only ‘some’ kills are forbidden. ‘
More than 1,000 species are cared for under the law, and the changes have left a sharp mark on organizations pleading on behalf of an estimated 46 million American bird watchers.
“The Trump administration’s policy was nothing more than a cruel, bird-slaughter gift to polluters and we are excited that it has been fired,” said Noah Greenwald, director of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the complainants used to be.
The Migrant Bird Act of 1918 came after many American bird populations were decimated by hunting and poaching – much of it for the sake of female shepherds.
It was one of the first major federal environmental laws, enacted just after the conservation movement imagined by President Teddy Roosevelt emerged as a new force in American politics.
In the past half century, when new threats to birds arose, the law was also applied against companies that failed to prevent predictable bird deaths, such as oil companies that set nets over toxic waste wells despite warnings from federal officials.
The Trump administration claimed the deaths of birds flying in oil rigs, mining sites, telecommunications towers, wind turbines and other hazards should be treated as accidents and not subject to prosecution.
The Department of the Interior said in a statement that Caproni’s statement “undermines the interpretation of the common meaning of the law and contradicts recent efforts, shared across the political spectrum, to decriminalize unintentional behavior.”
A 2017 Home Affairs legal decision had already effectively ended criminal enforcement under the act during Trump’s presidency. Eight states led by New York and several conservation groups including the National Audubon Society are challenging that decision in federal court.
They claimed that birds had already been harmed by the administration’s policy, particularly on the destruction last fall of nesting sites for 25,000 coastal birds in Virginia to make way for a road and tunnel project. State officials had suspended conservation measures for the birds after federal officials advised that such measures were voluntary under the new interpretation of the law.
The case with the highest profile maintained during the migratory bird action resulted in a $ 100 million settlement by BP, after the Gulf of Mexico oil killed about 100,000 birds in 2010.
Industrial sources kill an estimated 450 million to 1.1 billion birds annually, out of a total of 7.2 billion birds in North America, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recent studies.
