(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Amanda D. Rodewald, Cornell University

(THE CONVERSATION) The Trump administration has proposed a new regulation on protecting migratory birds that is a drastic pullback from policies in force for the past 100 years. The draft rule is open for public comment through March 19.

In 1916, amid the chaos of World War I, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and King George V of Great Britain signed the Migratory Bird Treaty. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) wrote the treaty into U.S. law tw...