scholarly journals Data contradict common perceptions about a controversial provision of the US Endangered Species Act

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (52) ◽  
pp. 15844-15849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob W. Malcom ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Endangered Species Act ◽  
National Marine Fisheries Service ◽  
Imperiled Species ◽  
Analyze Data

Separating myth and reality is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of laws. Section 7 of the US Endangered Species Act (Act) directs federal agencies to help conserve threatened and endangered species, including by consulting with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or National Marine Fisheries Service on actions the agencies authorize, fund, or carry out. Consultations ensure that actions do not violate the Act’s prohibitions on “jeopardizing” listed species or “destroying or adversely modifying” these species’ critical habitat. Because these prohibitions are broad, many people consider section 7 the primary tool for protecting species under the Act, whereas others believe section 7 severely impedes economic development. This decades-old controversy is driven primarily by the lack of data on implementation: past analyses are either over 25 y old or taxonomically restricted. We analyze data on all 88,290 consultations recorded by FWS from January 2008 through April 2015. In contrast to conventional wisdom about section 7 implementation, no project was stopped or extensively altered as a result of FWS finding jeopardy or adverse modification during this period. We also show that median consultation duration is far lower than the maximum allowed by the Act, and several factors drive variation in consultation duration. The results discredit many of the claims about the onerous nature of section 7 but also raise questions as to how federal agencies could apply this tool more effectively to conserve species. We build on the results to identify ways to improve the effectiveness of consultations for imperiled species conservation and increase the efficiency of consultations.

scholarly journals Data indicate the importance of expert agencies in conservation policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Evans ◽  
Jacob W. Malcom ◽  
Ya-Wei Li
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Marine Fisheries ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
Using Data ◽  
National Marine Fisheries Service ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Imperiled Species

ABSTRACTData on the implementation of laws and policies are essential to the evaluation and improvement of governance. For conservation laws like the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), such data can inform actions that may determine the persistence or extinction of species. A central but controversial part of the ESA is section 7, which requires federal agencies to conserve threatened and endangered species. One way they do this is by consulting with expert agencies for the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), on actions they may undertake that impact listed species. Using data from all 24,893 consultations recorded by NMFS from 2000 through 2017, we show that federal agencies misestimated the effects of their actions on listed species in 21% of consultations, relative to the conclusions reached by NMFS. In 71% of these cases the federal agency underestimated the effects of their action. Those discrepancies were particularly important for the conservation of 14 species in 22 consultations, where the agency concluded that its action would not harm a species, while NMFS determined the action would jeopardize the species’ existence. Patterns of misestimation varied among federal agencies, and some of the agencies most frequently involved in consultation also frequently misestimated their effects. Jeopardy conclusions were very rare—about 0.3% of consultations—with a few project types more likely to lead to jeopardy. These data highlight the importance of consultation with the expert agencies and reveal opportunities to make the consultation process more effective.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe US Endangered Species Act is the strongest environmental law any nation has enacted to conserve imperiled species. However, policy debates over how the Act should be implemented continue to this day. This study provides the first comprehensive evaluation of how the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implements one of the Act’s most important conservation programs – consultations under section 7. Our results reveal novel insights into the importance of NMFS role in ensuring federal actions do not jeopardize the existence of listed species. By using data to inform policy debate, we identify approaches to implementing section 7 that would undermine the conservation of imperiled species, and those that could improve the efficiency of the program without sacrificing these protections.

scholarly journals Same law, diverging practice: comparative analysis of Endangered Species Act consultations by two federal agencies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Evansen ◽  
Ya-Wei Li ◽  
Jacob Malcom
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Sea Turtle ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Turtle Species ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
National Marine Fisheries Service ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACTEvaluating how wildlife conservation laws are implemented is critical for safeguarding biodiversity. Two agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (FWS and NMFS; Services collectively), are responsible for implementing the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), which requires federal protection for threatened and endangered species. FWS and NMFS’ comparable role for terrestrial and marine taxa, respectively, provides the opportunity to examine how implementation of the same law varies between agencies. We analyzed how the Services implement a core component of the ESA, section 7 consultations, by objectively assessing the contents of >120 consultations on sea turtle species against the requirements in the Services’ consultation handbook, supplemented with in-person observations from Service biologists. Our results showed that NMFS consultations were 1.40 times as likely to have higher completeness scores than FWS consultations given the standard in the handbook. Consultations tiered from an FWS programmatic consultation inherited higher quality scores of generally more thorough programmatic consultations, indicating that programmatic consultations could increase the quality of consultations while improving efficiency. Both agencies commonly neglected to account for the effects of previous consultations and the potential for compounded effects on species. From these results, we recommend actions that can improve quality of consultation, including the use of a single database to track and integrate previously authorized harm in new analyses and the careful but more widespread use of programmatic consultations. Our study reveals several critical shortfalls in the current process of conducting ESA section 7 consultations that the Services could address to better safeguard North America’s most imperiled species.

scholarly journals Recommendations for Improving Recovery Criteria under the US Endangered Species Act

BioScience ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel F. Doak ◽  
Gina K. Himes Boor ◽  
Victoria J. Bakker ◽  
William F. Morris ◽  
Allison Louthan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Endangered Species Act

scholarly journals Cusk (Brosme brosme) and climate change: assessing the threat to a candidate marine fish species under the US Endangered Species Act

2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (10) ◽  
pp. 1753-1768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Hare ◽  
John P. Manderson ◽  
Janet A. Nye ◽  
Michael A. Alexander ◽  
Peter J. Auster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Habitat Fragmentation ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Marine Fish ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Marine Fish Species ◽  
Northwest Atlantic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Endangered Species Act

AbstractHare, J.A., Manderson, J.P., Nye, J.A., Alexander, M.A., Auster, P.J., Borggaard, D.L., Capotondi, A.M., Damon-Randall, K.B., Heupel, E., Mateo, I., O'Brien, L., Richardson, D.E., Stock, C.A., and Biege, S.T. 2012. Cusk (Brosme brosme) and climate change: assessing the threat to a candidate marine fish species under the US Endangered Species Act. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: 1753–1768. In the Northwest Atlantic Ocean cusk (Brosme brosme) has declined dramatically, primarily as a result of fishing activities. These declines have led to concern about its status, which has prompted reviews under the US Endangered Species Act and the Canadian Species at Risk Act. Changes in distribution and abundance of a number of marine fish in the Northwest Atlantic have been linked to climate variability and change, suggesting that both fishing and climate may affect the status of cusk. Our goal was to evaluate potential effects of climate change on Northwest Atlantic cusk distribution. Coupling a species niche model with the output from an ensemble of climate models, we projected cusk distribution in the future. Our results indicate cusk habitat in the region will shrink and fragment, which is a result of a spatial mismatch between high complexity seafloor habitat and suitable temperature. The importance of habitat patch connectivity for cusk is poorly understood, so the population-level consequences of climate-related habitat fragmentation are uncertain. More broadly, climate change may reduce appropriate thermal habitat and increase habitat fragmentation for other cold-water species in the region; thereby, increasing the potential for regional overexploitation and extirpation.

scholarly journals Conservation triage or injurious neglect in endangered species recovery

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (13) ◽  
pp. 3563-3566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah R. Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Conservation Action ◽  
Significant Discrepancy ◽  
Decision Theoretic Approach ◽  
Successful Recovery ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Endangered Species Act ◽  
Larger Sample

Listing endangered and threatened species under the US Endangered Species Act is presumed to offer a defense against extinction and a solution to achieve recovery of imperiled populations, but only if effective conservation action ensues after listing occurs. The amount of government funding available for species protection and recovery is one of the best predictors of successful recovery; however, government spending is both insufficient and highly disproportionate among groups of species, and there is significant discrepancy between proposed and actualized budgets across species. In light of an increasing list of imperiled species requiring evaluation and protection, an explicit approach to allocating recovery funds is urgently needed. Here I provide a formal decision-theoretic approach focusing on return on investment as an objective and a transparent mechanism to achieve the desired recovery goals. I found that less than 25% of the $1.21 billion/year needed for implementing recovery plans for 1,125 species is actually allocated to recovery. Spending in excess of the recommended recovery budget does not necessarily translate into better conservation outcomes. Rather, elimination of only the budget surplus for “costly yet futile” recovery plans can provide sufficient funding to erase funding deficits for more than 180 species. Triage by budget compression provides better funding for a larger sample of species, and a larger sample of adequately funded recovery plans should produce better outcomes even if by chance. Sharpening our focus on deliberate decision making offers the potential to achieve desired outcomes in avoiding extinction for Endangered Species Act-listed species.

The potential listing of Acropora species under the US Endangered Species Act

2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 534-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Precht ◽  
Martha L. Robbart ◽  
Richard B. Aronson
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Endangered Species Act
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