Marine mammals and sea turtles listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act are recovering

AbstractThe U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the world’s strongest environmental law protecting imperiled plants and animals, and a growing number of marine species have been protected under this law as extinction risk in the oceans has increased. Marine mammals and sea turtles comprise 36% of the 161 ESA-listed marine species, yet analyses of recovery trends after listing are lacking. Here we gather the best available annual population estimates for all marine mammals (n=33) and sea turtles (n=29) listed under the ESA as species. Of these, we quantitatively analyze population trends, magnitude of population change, and recovery status for representative populations of 23 marine mammals and 9 sea turtles, which were listed for more than five years, occur in U.S. waters, and have data of sufficient quality and span of time for trend analyses. Using generalized linear and non-linear models, we found that 78% of marine mammals (n=18) and 78% of sea turtles (n=7) significantly increased after listing; 13% of marine mammals (n=3) and 22% of sea turtles (n=2) showed non-significant changes; while 9% of marine mammals (n=2), but no sea turtles declined after ESA protection. Overall, species with populations that increased in abundance were listed for 20 years or more (e.g., large whales, manatees, and sea turtles). Conservation measures triggered by ESA listing such as ending exploitation, tailored species management, and fishery regulations, among others, appear to have been largely successful in promoting species recovery, leading to the delisting of some species and to increases in most. These findings underscore the capacity of marine mammals and sea turtles to recover from substantial population declines when conservation actions under the ESA are implemented in a timely and effective manner.

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Marine mammals and sea turtles listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act are recovering

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0210164 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. e0210164 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Abel Valdivia ◽

Shaye Wolf ◽

Kieran Suckling

Keyword(s):

Endangered Species ◽

Marine Mammals ◽

Sea Turtles ◽

Endangered Species Act ◽

The U.S

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Testing Decision Rules for Categorizing Species’ Extinction Risk to Help Develop Quantitative Listing Criteria for the U.S. Endangered Species Act

Conservation Biology ◽

10.1111/cobi.12055 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 821-831 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

TRACEY J. REGAN ◽

BARBARA L. TAYLOR ◽

GRANT G. THOMPSON ◽

JEAN FITTS COCHRANE ◽

KATHERINE RALLS ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Endangered Species ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Decision Rules ◽

Endangered Species Act ◽

Species Extinction ◽

The U.S

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Consistent Extinction Risk Assessment under the U.S. Endangered Species Act

Conservation Letters ◽

10.1111/conl.12269 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 328-336 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Charlotte Boyd ◽

Douglas P. DeMaster ◽

Robin S. Waples ◽

Eric J. Ward ◽

Barbara L. Taylor

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Endangered Species ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Endangered Species Act ◽

Extinction Risk Assessment ◽

The U.S

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Data indicate the importance of expert agencies in conservation policy

10.1101/424911 ◽

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.

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Evaluation of Two Approaches to Defining Extinction Risk under the U.S. Endangered Species Act

Risk Analysis ◽

10.1111/risa.12927 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 38 (5) ◽

pp. 1009-1035 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Grant G. Thompson ◽

Lynn A. Maguire ◽

Tracey J. Regan

Keyword(s):

Endangered Species ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Endangered Species Act ◽

The U.S

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Extinction and the U.S. Endangered Species Act

10.7287/peerj.preprints.27471 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Noah Greenwald ◽

Kieran F Suckling ◽

Brett Hartl ◽

Loyal Mehrhoff

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Endangered Species ◽

Endangered Species Act ◽

The United States ◽

Species Extinction ◽

Number Of Species ◽

The U.S ◽

Species Extinctions

The United States Endangered Species Act is one of the strongest laws of any nation for preventing species extinction, but quantifying the Act’s effectiveness has proven difficult. To provide one measure of effectiveness, we identified listed species that have gone extinct and used previously developed methods to update an estimate of the number of species extinctions prevented by the Act. To date, only four species have been confirmed extinct with another 22 possibly extinct following protection. Another 71 listed species are extinct or possibly extinct, but were last seen before protections were enacted, meaning the Act’s protections never had the opportunity to save these species. In contrast, a total of 39 species have been fully recovered, including 23 in the last 10 years. We estimate the Endangered Species Act has prevented the extinction of roughly 291 species since passage in 1973, and has to date saved more than 99 percent of species under its protection.

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