The Endangered Species Act faces its own extinction peril
SHARON TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Biologist Ashley Wilson carefully disentangled a bat from netting and examined the wriggling mammal in her headlamp’s glow. “Another big brown,” she said with a sigh.
It was a common type, one of many Wilson and colleagues had snagged. They were looking for increasingly scarce Indiana and northern long-eared bats, which historically migrated there for birthing season.
The scientists had yet to spot either species this year.
“It’s a bad (sign) if we do not catch one . ... ,” said Allen Kurta, an Eastern Michigan University professor who has studied bats for more than 40 years.
The two bat varieties are designated as imperiled under the Endangered Species Act. Enacted in 1973 amid fear for iconic creatures such as the bald eagle and gray wolf, it extends legal protection to 1,683 domestic species.
More than 99% of those listed as “endangered,” or the less severe “threatened,” have survived.
“The Endangered Species Act has been very successful,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in an Associated Press interview. “And I believe very strongly that we’re in a better place for it.”
Fifty years after the law took effect, environmental advocates and scientists say it’s as essential as ever. Habitat loss, pollution and climate change are putting an estimated 1 million species worldwide at risk.
Yet the law has become so controversial that Congress hasn’t updated it since 1992 — and some worry it won’t last another half-century.
Conservative administrations and lawmakers have stepped up efforts to weaken it, backed by landowner and industry groups that contend the act stifles economic growth. Members of Congress try increasingly to overrule government experts on protections.
The act is “wellintentioned but entirely outdated … twisted ... into a political firefight rather than an important piece of conservation law,” said Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican and chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, who in July announced GOP lawmakers would propose changes.
Environmentalists accuse regulators of slowwalking new listings to appease critics and say Congress provides too little funding for the act’s mission.
“Its biggest challenge is it’s starving,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife.
“The Endangered Species Act is our best tool to address biodiversity loss in the United States,” Senate Environment and Public Works chair Tom Carper said during a May floor debate over whether the northern long-eared bat should keep its protection status granted in 2022.
“And we know that biodiversity is worth preserving for ... good (stewardship) of our one and only planet.”
Despite the Delaware Democrat’s plea, the Senate voted to nullify the bat’s endangered designation after opponents said disease was primarily responsible for the population decline.
That’s an ominous sign, said Kurta the Michigan scientist.
“Its population has dropped 90% in a very short period of time,” he said. “If that doesn’t make you go on the endangered species list, what (will)?”
It’s “nothing short of astounding” how attitudes toward the law have changed, largely because few realized at first how far it would reach, said Holly Doremus, a University of California, Berkeley law professor.
Attention 50 years ago was riveted on iconic animals like the American alligator, Florida panther and California condor. Some had been pushed to the brink by habitat destruction or pollutants such as the pesticide DDT. People over-harvested other species or targeted them as nuisances.
The 1973 measure made it illegal to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect” listed animals and plants or ruin their habitats.
It ordered federal agencies not to authorize or fund actions likely to jeopardize their existence, although amendments later allowed permits for limited “take” — incidental killing — resulting from otherwise legal projects.
The act cleared Congress with what in hindsight appears stunning ease: unanimous Senate approval and a 390-12 House vote. President Richard Nixon, a Republican, signed it into law.
“It was not created by a bunch of hippies,” said Rebecca Hardin, a University of Michigan environmental anthropologist. “We had a sense as a country that we had done damage and we needed to heal.”
But backlash emerged as the statute spurred regulation of oil and gas development, logging, ranching and other industries. The endangered list grew to include little-known creatures — from the frosted flatwoods salamander to the tooth cave spider — and nearly 1,000 plants.
“It’s easy to get everybody to sign on with protecting whales and grizzly bears,” Doremus said. “But people didn’t anticipate that things they wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t think beautiful, would need protection in ways that would block some economic activity.”