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Success rate of the Endangered Species Act

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The success rate of the Endangered Species Act is measured in different ways by different groups. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "The goal of the Endangered Species Act is the recovery of listed species to levels where protection under the Act is no longer necessary."[1][2][3]

There are several ways to define success or to measure the success rate of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Groups supportive of the act have argued that the Endangered Species Act has a success rate of 90 percent or greater. Some ESA critics have argued that the law has a success rate of between 1 percent and 3 percent.

Criteria for measuring success

Measuring the success rate of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) depends on what factors are used. Below is an overview of the different criteria used by different groups to measure the ESA's success.

  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the ESA, has said that the ESA's goal is "the recovery of listed species to levels where protection under the Act is no longer necessary." The agency has said that the most relevant criteria to measure success includes the "number of species that are no longer declining, have stable populations, or have gained a solid foothold on the path toward recovery and are improving in status." The agency estimated in July 2013 that 98 percent of all listed species survive and that this statistic indicated that the ESA is effective at achieving its goal. Moreover, the agency has said that given the time and resources needed to prevent a species from declining it should be expected that species take a considerable time to recover.[4]
  • Environmental organizations that support the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have said the law is a success. These groups have said that act is necessary to prevent what they have said is an extinction crisis exacerbated by human-made climate change and habitat loss due to human activity. Some environmental groups have opposed using the number of species that have been delisted due to recovery as a measurement of the law's success. These groups have said that the metric would exclude listed species with growing populations that have not yet been delisted. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD)—an environmental group—has said that the ESA's success should be measured by the number of species that have gone extinct after they were listed.[5][6]
  • One metric that Endangered Species Act (ESA) critics use to measure the law's success is the number of species that have been delisted as a result of recovery. These groups, which include some property rights groups, have said that this metric is found within the text of the ESA because the law defines the conservation of species to include "all methods and procedures which are necessary to bring any [endangered or threatened species] to the point" where the law's protections "are no longer necessary." As of July 2016, 63 species were delisted. Of those species, 34 were delisted due to recovery out of 1,596 U.S.-listed species. Some ESA critics pointed to this number as evidence that the law has been unsuccessful at recovering species.[7][8][9]

Arguments in favor of success

Below are arguments used by ESA proponents who have argued that the Endangered Species Act has been successful.

The ESA has helped stabilize species populations

One argument proponents have made in favor of the law's success states that federally listed animals and plants have had their populations stabilize due to federal protection though they may not have fully recovered. This argument emphasizes that the appropriate metric to judge the ESA's success is not the number of recovered species but the number of species that have stopped declining. According to a 2013 article in the science magazine Scientific American, the majority of federally listed plant and animal populations have stopped declining, though the magazine did not specify the number of species. In 2015, WildEarth Guardians, an environmental group, that has supported evaluating the Endangered Species Act by how well it prevents extinction, stated on their website "The ESA has been 99 percent successful at preventing the extinction of listed species."[10][11]

A 2006 study by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) listed several species as examples of ESA's success, such as the bald eagle, the shortnose sturgeon, and the Atlantic piping plover. The study said that each of the three species's populations had risen before 2005 when the CBD study began though they had not been delisted. The CBD argued that the bald eagle had grown from 417 pairs in 1963 to 7,280 in 2003; the sturgeon had grown from 12,669 fish located in the Hudson River to 56,708 fish in 1996; and the plover had grown from 550 pairs in 1986 to 1,423 in 2004.[12]

Listed species are meeting their recovery deadlines

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) said that the ESA has been successful based on the number of species that have met goals found in their federal recovery plans. Their 2012 study stated that out of a sample of 110 endangered and threatened species that had begun recovering between their listing and either the date of their delisting or December 2011 (the CBD chose whichever date was earliest), 90 percent met the recovery rates outlined in their federal conservation plans. The CBD calculated its rate by taking the sample of 110 species and selecting the 51 species with recovery deadlines in their federal conservation plans. Ten of the 51 deadlines occurred before the end of 2011, and nine of the 10 species were delisted by the end of 2011. The CBD concluded that "90 percent of species in [the study] met their recovery timeline."[13]

In its 2006 study, the CBD looked at listed species in eight northeastern states (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey) to determine whether the listed species in the study were "progressing toward recovery in a timeline consistent with their federal recovery plans." The report also focused on whether the listed species were "increasing or decreasing in number since being placed on the endangered species list." The CBD studied a total of 49 listed species in the Northeast. Of the 49 species used for the study, the CBD said that the ESA had been "100% successful in preventing the extinction of endangered species in the Northeast" because the 49 species were not extinct at the time of the study's completion in 2006.[12]

Arguments against ESA success

Below are arguments used by ESA critics that have argued that the law has been ineffective and unsuccessful.

Few species have been delisted due to recovery

One argument ESA critics have made is that the number of species that have been delisted due to recovery is evidence that the law has been unsuccessful. Although ESA critics use different figures to calculate the percentage of species delisted since 1973, the percentage of species delisted due to recovery ranges between 1 and 3 percent. As of July 2016, 63 species were delisted. Of those species, 34 were delisted due to recovery out of the 1,596 U.S.-listed species—a success rate of 2.1 percent.[14]

In a February 2014 report, the Congressional Endangered Species Act (ESA) Working Group, which was composed of 13 Republican members of the U.S. House, stated that out of more than 1,500 species listed since the ESA's passage in 1973, 2 percent were recovered at the time of the study's publication. As of February 2014, 57 species were delisted, including 28 that were delisted due to recovery. Using the study's baseline figure of 1,500 species listed since 1973, the report said that the percentage of delisted species due to recovery was 1.86 percent.[15]

The ESA is ineffectual at conserving species on private land

Some ESA critics have said that the law has been unsuccessful at conserving species on private land. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, approximately 75 percent of listed species use privately owned land as habitat. Federal law prohibits the taking of a listed species. Taking includes land use that significantly modifies a listed species's habitat. Private individuals may face up to $25,000 in federal fines if they knowingly take a listed species. Individuals may be fined up to $500 for each violation if they take a listed species unknowingly. ESA critics have said that these regulations are punitive and undermine voluntary species conservation.

In addition, ESA critics have said that the take prohibition incentivises private individuals to harm or kill a listed species on their land in order to avoid private land restrictions and ultimately harm the species the ESA is meant to protect. Some property rights groups have argued that landowners have little to no incentive to modify their land voluntarily to conserve a listed species because voluntary habitat conservation is costly and time consuming.[16]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Legal Information Institute, "16 U.S. Code § 1531 - Congressional findings and declaration of purposes and policy," accessed September 2, 2015
  2. ↑ Legal Information Institute, "16 U.S. Code § 1532 - Definitions," accessed September 2, 2015
  3. ↑ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Overview," accessed August 31, 2015
  4. ↑ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Defining Success Under the Endangered Species Act," July 12, 2013
  5. ↑ Center for Biological Diversity, "Endangered Species," accessed September 17, 2015
  6. ↑ Center for Biological Diversity, "The Endangered Species Act Works," accessed September 2, 2015
  7. ↑ Legal Information Institute, "16 U.S. Code § 1531 - Congressional findings and declaration of purposes and policy," accessed September 2, 2015
  8. ↑ Legal Information Institute, "16 U.S. Code § 1532 - Definitions," accessed September 2, 2015
  9. ↑ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Overview," accessed August 31, 2015
  10. ↑ Scientific American, "The 5 Biggest Myths about the Endangered Species Act," September 18, 2013
  11. ↑ WildEarth Guardians, "Endangered Species Protection," accessed September 5, 2015
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Center for Biological Diversity, "Measuring the Success of the Endangered Species Act," February 2006
  13. ↑ Center for Biological Diversity, "On Time, On Target: How the Endangered Species Act Is Saving America’s Wildlife," May 2012
  14. ↑ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Delisted Species Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)," accessed August 27, 2015
  15. ↑ Endangered Species Act Congressional Working Group, "Endangered Species Act: Report, Findings and Recommendations," February 4, 2014
  16. ↑ Property and Environment Research Center, "When the Endangered Species Act Threatens Wildlife," October 23, 2014
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