By Benjamin Alva Polley EBS COLUMNIST
The Endangered Species Act was one of the first times we as a nation aspired to extend rights to other living beings in the United States and thought of their well-being.
The Endangered Species Act was overwhelmingly passed with bipartisan support on Dec. 28, 1973. This year heralds the 50th anniversary of this vital support system that aspires to save threatened and endangered arthropods, amphibians, birds, crustaceans, fish, insects, mammals, mollusks, plants and reptiles for future generations. It was signed into law by Richard Nixon after it had passed unanimously, 92-0, in the U.S. Senate, and 390-12 in the House.
Five decades ago, conserving the planet was apolitical. The ESA relied on the best available science, and it didn’t matter the economic cost. That former has now changed as economics continue to rule the day. It may take 10-12 years or a quarter century for a species to gain a listing, like the wolverines that were just placed on it last month or sage grouse, for which conservation groups have been fighting for protection—but without ultimate success, because sage grouse inhabit areas where oil and gas leases remain. In the meantime, the species’ populations have crashed.
Regardless of politics, the ESA has been extraordinarily successful and has helped bring numerous species back from the brink of extinction, including American alligators, bald eagles, California condors, Chinook salmon, humpback whales, grizzly bears, peregrine falcons, sea otters, and wolves to name just a few. The ESA has helped recover 54 of America’s native species. Currently, 1,618 U.S. species (including plants) are listed on the ESA and protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries (another Nixon creation) defends 65 global species.
The most famous recovery is America’s national symbol, the bald eagle, also one of the first species listed under the 1967 precursor to today’s ESA. The declining bald eagle population mainly inspired the first form of protection ever for its kind. Eagles were perceived as a threat to livestock and salmon populations and were shot on-site. When the United States first adopted bald eagles as the national symbol in 1782, there were an estimated 100,000 nesting bald eagles in the continental United States. By 1963, their numbers drastically declined from the insecticide DDT, down to 417 breeding pairs in 48 states, and now their numbers have increased to 316,700 individuals, which includes 71,467 occupied nests. This recovery is thriving because people came together.
People, agencies, and organizations are working to recover species the Act protects. Conservation methods to save species include seed-banking and out-planting, protecting migration corridors, creating buffer zones around protected areas, translocating species, limiting hunting and trapping, removing dams and restoring habitat and wetlands. These are just some methods used to help species return to healthy numbers. The ESA is an excellent example of what can happen when people put aside political beliefs and come together to work for the common good of other life forms.
Benjamin Alva Polley is a place-based storyteller with stories published in Outside, Adventure Journal, Popular Science, Field & Stream, Esquire, Sierra, Audubon, Earth Island Journal, Modern Huntsman, and other publications at his website www.benjaminpolley.com/stories. He holds a master’s in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism from the University of Montana.
