# Elephants and rhinos at increased risk of poaching due to Trump funding cuts, groups say

## Trump administration

**Wed 5 Mar 2025 12.27 EST**  
**Last modified on Thu 6 Mar 2025 07.33 EST**

Environmentalists have urged the  to reverse its decision to cut off funding for key  work aimed at saving iconic at-risk species, including anti-poaching patrols for vulnerable rhinos and elephants.

International conservation grants administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have been frozen by Trump, throwing conservation non-profits around the world into disarray. These grants, amounting to tens of millions of dollars, help protect  in countries that lack the US’s financial muscle to combat threats such as poaching.

An environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, said it would sue the FWS if the funding isn’t restored. It said the money is vital for patrols safeguarding rhinos in Africa, which have suffered a 94% population decline over the past century, as well as efforts to reduce human-elephant conflict and help conserve species such as freshwater turtles and monarch butterflies.

“The Trump administration’s funding freeze for anti-poaching patrols and other international conservation work is maddening, heartbreaking and very illegal,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the center.

“These Fish and  Service funds help protect elephants, rhinos and other animals across the globe that Americans love. No one voted to sacrifice the world’s most iconic wildlife to satisfy some unelected billionaire’s reckless power trip.”

In a  to the FWS, the center said that the funding halt violated the US Endangered Species Act, which requires the government to consider at-risk species in its decisions, and flouted proper agency procedure in rescinding funding. “This insanity has to stop or some of the world’s most endangered animals will die,” said Uhlemann.

The freeze on grants is part of a  on US foreign aid by Trump and his billionaire backer . A judge has ordered the freeze to be reversed, although the administration has yet to comply with the directive.

In his previous term in office, Trump sought to weaken the Endangered Species Act and has set about trying to bypass the conservation law during his latest term. The president has demanded that a little-known committee, nicknamed  due to its ability to decide if a species becomes extinct, help push through fossil fuel and  in the US even if they doom a species.

Experts have said that the use of the committee in this way is likely illegal. A court case may now unfold over the stymying of FWS grants for international conservation, too.



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