One of the most frustrating
elements for me of the toxic political climate today is how little facts seem
to matter anymore in public discourse. It’s become a common belief that the
Endangered Species Act hasn’t worked because, since its passage in 1973, only a
handful of species have recovered enough to be de-listed. Just between 2011 and2015, over 50 bills have been introduced trying to dismantle the Endangered SpeciesAct, usually on the grounds that it has been a huge failure.
How can anyone
argue this when Bald Eagles and Peregrine Falcons are so obviously doing well?
They say the Endangered Species Act had nothing to do with these species’
recoveries—it was simply the banning of DDT. It takes a certain level of chutzpah
for the same people who still decry banning DDT in the United States to seize
upon that ban as the entire reason for the recovery of these species, but as
entertainment and politics become increasingly intertwined, chutzpah seems the
order of the day.
In reality, the Endangered
Species Act sets forth provisions for researching the specific needs of each
listed species and the causes for its decline, and requires the development of a
specific plan of action created by researchers, state departments of natural resources,
landowners, and other stakeholders that focuses on the specific needs of that
species. Each recovery plan includes benchmarks of success that set a minimum
population level at which a species can safely be de-listed, along with an
expected timeline for this to happen. The Senate unanimously voted in favor of
the Act, Congress voted 390–12 in favor, and Richard Nixon signed it. The U.S.
Supreme Court found that “the plain intent of Congress in enacting” the ESA
"was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the
cost.”
In the case of Bald Eagles and
Peregrine Falcons, the banning of DDT was certainly a primary cause of the
endangerment in the first place. But both species had declined over most of
their former range to critical levels—nesting Peregrine Falcons had been
completely wiped out over the eastern United States. For either to recover, research
into nesting requirements and sturdy protections of habitat and nesting areas were
crucial; in the case of Peregrine Falcons, painstaking reintroduction projects
after developing techniques for captive breeding, all funded by the Endangered
Species Act, were also essential.
We humans are an impatient and
shortsighted species. Back in 1973, everyone knew what a long, hard battle was
needed to bring each species back from the brink, especially because virtually
all endangered and threatened species are imperiled not by one easily fixable thing
but by an assortment of causes, some very hard to address. But that law was passed
43 years ago—before most people living in the United States today were even
born. Nowadays, it’s easy to pull a fast one on people, claiming the Endangered
Species Act doesn’t work simply because it does take a long time to bring some
species back.
Fortunately, a new report by the Center for Biological Diversity was released this week, documenting just how successful the Act has
been with regard to birds, the group of animals most easy to accurately census.
Fully 85 percent of the 120 bird species protected under the Endangered Species
Act in the Continental United States increased or stabilized their population
size since being protected, and the average population increase was 624 percent.
For the most part, birds are recovering at the rate and magnitude intended by the
Endangered Species Act’s congressional creators and administrative overseers.
And birds listed as endangered
fared much better than unlisted birds, which on average have declined 24
percent since 1974.
It’s impossible for a significant majority of Americans
today to remember the ‘70s, when condors, eagles, osprey, and falcons were
virtually gone; when the state bird of Louisiana, the Brown Pelican, had been
entirely wiped out in Louisiana; when the extinctions of Black-capped Vireos,
California Gnatcatchers, and Kirtland’s Warblers loomed in the foreseeable
future. Today, those of us who were adults at the time and do clearly remember
are ourselves disappearing. So in coming days I’ll focus on some of the
dramatic successes of the Endangered Species Act.
