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Fifty years ago, on December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed The Endangered Species Act into law.
The full title of the ESA was "an Act to provide for the conservation of endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants, and for other purposes." The Supreme Court of the United States once called it "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species enacted by any nation."
Appeals for meaningful legislation to protect and conserve wildlife began to garner support in the early years of the twentieth century after the severe decline of several species. Herds of American bison that had once numbered in the tens of millions had been eradicated to the extent of reducing this symbol of the American West to the brink of extinction.
Population estimates for the now-extinct passenger pigeon were once a staggering three billion birds, making it the most abundant bird in North America. Intense and relentless market hunting and deforestation of large tracts needed for roosting and nesting had reduced their numbers to a fraction of that total by 1870.
The last confirmed sightings of passenger pigeons in the wild occurred in 1900 and 1901. The last passenger pigeon in captivity died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
Those were just two extreme examples of the wanton disregard for wildlife conservation in early America. One of the first federal laws aimed at protecting te exploitation of wild animals was the Lacey Act of 1900, which regulated commercial animal markets and prohibited the sale of illegally killed animals between states.
Additional federal legislation followed with the Migratory Bird Conservation Act of 1929 and the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, which was amended in 1962 to also include golden eagles.
Despite those and other laws at the federal state levels, populations of many species continued to decline. In 1941, only an estimated 16 whooping cranes existed in the wild. By 1963, fewer than 500 pairs of nesting bald eagles remained in the lower 48 states. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was dedicated to preventing the extinction of those and other at-risk species, but it lacked the necessary authority and funding. In response, Congress passed the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 that put in place a program to conserve, protect, and restore select species of native fish and wildlife. That program also authorized the Secretary of the Interior to acquire land or interests in land that would further the conservation of these species. In March 1967, the Department of Interior issued the first list of endangered species that included 14 mammals, 36 birds, 6 reptiles, 6 amphibians and 22 fish. On that list were the grizzly bear, American alligator, Florida manatee, and bald eagle.
The Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966 was amended three years later by the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969. This legislation expanded protections for species covered in 1966, added to the list of protected species and included protection for some species of mollusks and crustaceans.
In 1972, because he felt the current efforts for species protection, President Nixon asked Congress to pass comprehensive endangered species legislation. Using the Endangered Species Conservation Act of 1969 as a template, Congress rewrote the law and passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
The purposes of the Endangered Species Act are two-fold: to prevent extinction and to recover species to the point where the law's protections are not needed. The Act
is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
The 1973 Act made plants eligible for listing and protection. Wo different grades of listing were also established: endangered and threatened. The lesser category, threatened, was to enable the appropriate federal agencies the ability to take corrective action on behalf of a species sooner.
The concept of "critical habitat" was also introduced as part to the 1973 Act. The loss or degradation of habitat is often a significant cause for the decline of many endangered or threatened species. Being able to include critical habitat as part of a recovery plan can be a vital tool for the protection and recovery of threatened and endangered species. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 saw three major amendments in 1978. 1979 and 1982.
Over its 30 years of existence The Endangered Species Act of 1973 has also seen its share of controversy. Many high-profile legal cases have arisen around a species that is listed as endangered that brings a major development project to a halt. Most folks who have heard of the snail darter or spotted owl only know of those creatures because each was the focus of an endangered species court case years ago.
There are also cases where a farmer or other private landowner prohibited from using their property for certain purposes because some endangered frog or salamander is discovered to be living there. And sometimes the scientists can't agree on what species are actually endangered.
While I will gladly defer the legal and scientific wrangling to the lawyers and scientists, it is worth noting that many critics of the Endangered Species Act point to its goal of recovery for endangered species as not having the greatest track record. During the 50-year duration of the Act, about 1,780 species have been listed as either endangered or threatened. Just 64 species recovered enough to be delisted and another 64 improved enough to be downlisted from endangered to threatened. During that same period, 11 species have been declared extinct and 23 more species have gone missing long enough to now be proposed as officially declared extinct.
To end on a more upbeat note, the bald eagle was a charter member of the endangered species list. If anyone would have told me in 1973 that I would ever see a bald eagle in the wild in Blair, Huntingdon or Bedford counties, I would have certainly told them they were suffering from some grand delusion. But our national symbol was removed from the endangered species list in 2007 and is now a common sight near most waterways in our region.
I'll take any conservation success story anywhere anytime.