Endangered Species Act ESA, 1973

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Endangered Species ConservationFederal Level

• Endangered Species Act (ESA, 1973)
• Extends protection to plants
• Stresses maintaining integrity of the ecosystems
  
  
• Goal recover listed species
• Prohibits federal agencies from authorizing,
  funding, or carrying out any action that would
  jeopardize a listed species or destroy or modify
  its "critical habitat"
• Distinctions made between threatened and
  endangered

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Endangered Species Act

• Endangered species an animal or plant species in
  danger of extinction throughout all or a
  significant portion of its range
  
• Threatened species an animal or plant species
  likely to become endangered within the
  foreseeable future throughout all or a
  significant portion of its range

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Administration of the Act

• Done by US Fish and Wildlife Service or National
  Marine Fisheries Service
  
• Two main thrusts
• LISTING
• RECOVERY

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IUCN Categories

• Much more biologically based (Mace and Lande 1991
  and updates)
  
• Extinct
• Extinct in the wild
• Threatened
• Critically
• Endangered
• Endangered
• Vulnerable
• Lower Risk
• Near Threatened
• Least Concern

(Gärdenfors 2001)
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ESA vs IUCN categories

• Listed species in U.S. under ESA are in two most
  critical classes of IUCN categorization (Wilcove
  et al. 1989)
  
• low number of indivduals (populations
  
• emphasizes that the ESA is REACTIVE not proactive
  and shows why many species do not recover after
  listing--theyre too far gone already

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Endangered Species Act

• Steps in Classification and Conservation
• Petition Process
• Classification
• Recovery Team
• Recovery Plan
• Critical habitat
• Implement Recovery Plan
• Monitor populations
• Re-classify or de-list

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Listing

• Initiated by petition or Service uses available
  biological information and its
  
• Priority system
• BUT species are not listed in order of priority
• DELAY AND LACK of listing
• Insufficient data
• Economic impacts of listing
• Lawsuits
• Too many listings to handle

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Recovery

• Outline of recovery actions needed within 60 d
• Plans developed by Recovery Team
• Prioritization of species (add C for conflict)
• Set Goals for Recovery
• Establish multiple populations with possibility
  for migration among them
  
• Move to stop known threats
• Plan to achieve annual population growth rates
  above 0
  

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Are Priorities Followed? (GAO 1988)

• Are recovery tasks done?
• Not all of them
• Are species recovered in order of their
  priority?
  
• No
• Are recovery tasks done in order of priority?
• No

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• Annual Expenditures do Not Follow Priorities
• (Restani and Marzluff 2001)

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Why Arent Priorities Followed?

• Congressional earmarking
• takes part of Service budget and stipulates it to
  be spent on particular species
  
• Allure of sexy species
• high visibility, good PR, good chance of
  recovery
  
• Lawsuits
• For sexy species with public appeal
• Poor Coordination
• Conservation of species in one part of its range
  may not offset conservation in less important
  region
  
• Plans are not kept up to date
• priorities may no longer be valid

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Island Species Suffer From Not Following
Priorities
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Wide-ranging Species Benefit From Not Following
Priorities
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Designating Critical Habitat

• Determine extent of currently suitable habitat
• Assess quality of formerly occupied, but
  currently unoccupied habitat
  
• Designate critical habitat
• Critical Habitat includes habitat in out of
  current range that contains physical or
  biological features
  
• (1) essential to the conservation of the species
  and
  
• (2) requiring special management or protection
• Federal agencies must not jeopardize listed
  species or appreciably affect their abundance by
  reducing or modifying their critical habitat
  (Sect. 7)
• About 40 of our endangered species do not occur
  on federal land
  
• PRIVATE LANDS ARE IMPORTANT
• Establish priority habitat areas for restoration
• how should restoration be done?

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Getting off the List

• Priority system for de-listing and down-listing
  as well
  
• based on petition status and the impact of the
  reclassification on other management (how much
  will be freed up to do other work)

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So, What Do We Do?
Use Scientific Method to Identify Threat
Determine Spatial Extent of Protection
?
Set up Reserves
REMOVE THREAT
Manage in situ
Captive Breeding
Release Probe to Test if Threat is Removed
Monitor Recovery
Restock
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Adaptive Management
Recognizes That Managers Need to Work
Before Mechanisms are Understood
Solutions for Many of Wildlife Sciences Current
Shortcomings
Hypothetico- deductive Methods
Relevant Spatial and Temporal Scale
Validation via Monitoring
Long-term Research
Increased Manager- Researcher Partnerships
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Designating Experimental Populations

• 1982 amendment added exemption for experimental
  populations
  
• population established by human intervention that
  is outside of the species current range
  
• can be helpful in getting public support/access
• Northern Rocky Mountain population

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Constraints on Endangered Species Management
Political Considerations
Limited Breeding Population
Endangered Species Management
Land Use
Limited Habitat
Competition With Other Wildlife and People
Biological Knowledge
Legal Constraints
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Is the Current ESA Working?

• Are species recovered to level where protection
  is no longer required?
  
• NO, as of 2005 only 15 have been delisted due to
  recovery
  
• Brown Pelican, Palau fantail flycatcher, Palau
  ground-dove, Palau owl, Tinian Monarch, American
  alligator, Gray whale, Arctic and American
  peregrines, Aleutian Canada Goose, Robbins
  Cinquefoil, Douglas Co population of Columbia
  White-tailed Deer, 3 species of kangaroos
• Has listing prevented extinction?
• YES, only 9 of the 1676 listed species have gone
  extinct
  
• Guam Broadbill, Longjaw Cisco, Amistad Gambusia,
  Mariana Mallard, Sampsons Pearlymussel, Blue
  Pike, Pecopa Pupfish, Santa Barbara Song Sparrow,
  Dusky Seaside Sparrow
• some of these were actually extinct at time of
  listing!
  
• Condor, Red Wolf, Whooping Crane would likely be
  extinct without the Act
  
• So, we seem to be managing species to extinction,
  not recovery
  

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How Could the ESA be Strengthened?

• Base decisions and priorities on sound
  conservation science
  
• List species faster
• Protect hybrids
• Adjust priorities to include
• Inclusive benefits umbrella species
• Ecological role keystone species

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How do you assess the status of species?

• SCENARIO
• Your team works for the IUCN (International Union
  for the Conservation of Nature and Natural
  Resources) and has been tasked with the goal of
  developing a list of objective, standardized
  criteria that will enable IUCN to assess the
  conservation status of species. Are species of
  no conservation concern, threatened, critically
  endangered or are sufficient data lacking? Be
  prepared to justify your criteria.