Endangered Species Act

• Basics

• Enacted by Congress in 1973

• States that the national government has to protect endangered species, threatened species, and critical habitats

• The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists which animals qualify as endangered or critical species

• In order to qualify as endangered, a species must:

• have lost a large percentage of vital habitat to degradation

• been over-consumed by commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational use

• is threatened by disease or predation

• if current regulations or legislations inadequately protect the species

• if there are other manmade activities factors that threaten the long-term survival of the species

• What does it mean?

• After a species is declared endangered or threatened, it receives protections from the government including "take" and being traded or sold

• "Take" includes harassment, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect

• It also protects animals from interference in vital breeding and behavioral activities and the degradation of their critical habitat

• The primary purpose of the ESA is to keep a species at a healthy population number so that they can eventually be taken off the list

• The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service invest their time and resources to bring species whose numbers are dropping off of the brink of extinction

• Why is this important?

• It saves native fish, plants, and wildlife from going extinct

• Losing just one species can alter an entire ecosystem drastically

• Some animals have traits than can greatly benefit us when scientists figure out how they work

• A shark being cancer resistant

• When has the ESA been a success?

• Bald Eagle- dangerous pesticides limited their numbers, captive breeding programs and habitat protection as well as a ban on DDT brought them back from the brink

• Florida Panther- habitat loss threatened the species, captive breeding programs, habitat protection and wildlife underpass construction have increased their numbers significantly

• Gray Wolf- poisoning and trapping by farmers left only a few hundred of their species. today, public education and habitat restoration has brought their numbers up to a few thousand

• Grizzly Bear- excessive hunting and conversion of habitat to human uses caused a huge decline in their populations. recently, conservation organizations and private citizens have increased the population to more than 600 bears (roughly 2.5 times what it was)

#legislation