Why the Endangered Species Act keeps failing

[eppur_se_muova]

Posted by EarthSky Voices
October 13, 2022

The Columbia Climate School originally published this story on October 12, 2022. Edits by EarthSky.

Why the Endangered Species Act keeps failing

Since its passage in 1973, the U.S. Endangered Species Act has been the strongest law to prevent species extinctions in the United States. The law has served as a model of conservation policy to other nations. But its success in helping species recover leaves a lot to be desired. Out of the thousands of species that have been listed by the Endangered Species Act in the past 48 years, only 54 have recovered to the point where they no longer need protection. A new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE on October 12, 2022, examines why so few species have recovered successfully.

Erich Eberhard from Columbia University’s Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology led the study, and the co-authors are David Wilcove of Princeton University and Andrew Dobson of Princeton and the Santa Fe Institute. Their study paints a grim picture. They find that most species are not receiving protection until their populations are precariously small, dimming their prospects of recovery. They wrote:

We find that small population sizes at time of listing, coupled with delayed protection and insufficient funding, continue to undermine one of the world’s strongest laws for protecting biodiversity.

Accelerating rates of extinction

The findings are particularly newsworthy in light of the upcoming meeting of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in December. The meeting aims to finalize a framework that will guide conservation efforts around the world through 2030. The planet currently faces accelerating rates of species extinction, with a projected loss of over 1 million species in the foreseeable future.

Small populations are more vulnerable to environmental and genetic threats. Thus, they’re more likely to go extinct before conservation interventions can recover the species to a stable population size.

In 1993, scientists first reported evidence of species not receiving protection under the Endangered Species Act until their populations were very small. That’s when a study found that species being listed for protection had, on average, just 1,075 remaining individuals for vertebrates, 999 remaining individuals for invertebrates and 120 for plants.
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more: https://earthsky.org/earth/why-the-endangered-species-act-keeps-failing/?utm_source=EarthSky+News

[Pinback]

1. More $ for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would help.

We also need to do a better job of fighting right-wing narratives like “spotted owls vs. jobs.”

[Bayard]

2. Projected loss of over 1 million species in the foreseeable future.

We suck. And most people don't even care.

[Duppers]

4. "...most people don't even care."

That's The Truth!!

I know, I've tried talking to people. I try.

[2naSalit]

3. Well...

Once upon a time I was considered an ESA specialist and have presented a number of arguments regarding this Act both in the public and private sectors and this claim was a component of many a presentation.

I have a lot to say about this topic, as one might imagine, but I will say in brief that these findings are not new found data and it is long overdue that they are making it to a wider audience. It's almost too late to make a difference.

[Bayard]

5. I know

But I gotta hope its not too late.