scholarly journals Extinction and the U.S. Endangered Species Act

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.

scholarly journals Extinction and the U.S. Endangered Species Act

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 five 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 465 species since passage in 1973, and has to date saved more than 99 percent of species under its protection.

scholarly journals Extinction and the U.S. Endangered Species Act

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.

scholarly journals Extinction and the U.S. Endangered Species Act

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Greenwald ◽  
Kieran F. Suckling ◽  
Brett Hartl ◽  
Loyal A. Mehrhoff
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
Species Extinction ◽  
Number Of Species ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Species Extinctions

The U.S. 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% of species under its protection.

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

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 821-831 ◽  
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

A quantitative analysis of the state of knowledge of turtles of the United States and Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey E. Lovich ◽  
Joshua R. Ennen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
Evenness Indices ◽  
Access To Knowledge ◽  
Number Of Citations

The “information age” ushered in an explosion of knowledge and access to knowledge that continues to revolutionize society. Knowledge about turtles, as measured by number of published papers, has been growing at an exponential rate since the early 1970s, a phenomenon mirrored in all scientific disciplines. Although knowledge about turtles, as measured by number of citations for papers in scientific journals, has been growing rapidly, this taxonomic group remains highly imperiled suggesting that knowledge is not always successfully translated into effective conservation of turtles. We reviewed the body of literature on turtles of the United States and Canada and found that: 1) the number of citations is biased toward large-bodied species, 2) the number of citations is biased toward wide-ranging species, and 3) conservation status has little effect on the accumulation of knowledge for a species, especially after removing the effects of body size or range size. The dispersion of knowledge, measured by Shannon Weiner diversity and evenness indices across species, was identical from 1994 to 2009 suggesting that poorly studied species remained poorly-studied species while well-studied species remained well studied. Several species listed as threatened or endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (e.g., Pseudemys alabamensis, Sternotherus depressus, and Graptemys oculifera) remain poorly studied with the estimated number of citations for each ranging from only 13-24. The low number of citations for these species could best be explained by their restricted distribution and/or their smaller size. Despite the exponential increase in knowledge of turtles in the United States and Canada, no species of turtle listed under the Endangered Species Act has ever been delisted for reason of recovery. Therefore, increased knowledge does not necessarily contribute appreciably to recovery of threatened turtles.

scholarly journals A new species of melolonthine chafer in the endemic Californian genus Dinacoma Casey (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
CONRAD P.D.T. GILLETT ◽  
KENDALL H. OSBORNE ◽  
J. BRADLEY REIL ◽  
DANIEL RUBINOFF
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Species ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scarab Beetle ◽  
Distribution Map ◽  
Dichotomous Key ◽  
Conservation Concern ◽  
A New Species

We describe Dinacoma sanfelipe sp. nov. from southern California, the first new species belonging to the melolonthine scarab beetle genus Dinacoma Casey, 1889 (Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae: Melolonthini) to be described in 90 years, based upon examination of 141 specimens of that genus. Diagnostic comments, a dichotomous key, photographs of all species of Dinacoma, and a distribution map are presented to facilitate the identification of adult male specimens.  One species in the genus is federally listed under the United States Endangered Species act, and all known species may be of conservation concern. Key words: Scarabaeoidea, Melolonthini, scarab beetle, insect conservation, cryptic species

scholarly journals Better Representation Is Needed in U.S. Endangered Species Act Implementation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Malcom ◽  
Andrew Carter
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Gray Wolf ◽  
Picoides Borealis ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Threatened And Endangered Species ◽  
The U.S

In the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the concepts of resilience, redundancy, and representation—often known as the “3Rs”—to guide implementation of the Endangered Species Act, which requires the U.S. government to designate imperiled species as threatened or endangered, and take action to recover them. The Service has done little, however, to relate the 3Rs to the statutory requirements of the Act. Here we focus on interpreting the concept of representation given core tenets of science and conservation policy. We show that the Service's current interpretation, which focuses on a narrow set of characteristics intrinsic to species that facilitate future adaptation, falls far short of a reasonable interpretation from the scientific literature and other policy, and has significant consequences for the conservation of threatened and endangered species, including those found in other countries. To illustrate the shortcomings in practice, we discuss the cases of the Lower 48 gray wolf (Canis lupus) delisting, the proposed Red-cockadedWoodpecker (Picoides borealis) downlisting, and the possible downlisting of the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). We then propose an alternative interpretation of representation that accommodates the Service's narrow interpretation and broadens it to include the importance of intraspecific variation for its own sake as well as extrinsic characteristics such as a species' role in ecological communities. We argue that this interpretation better reflects the intent of the Endangered Species Act, the best available science, and policy needs for conserving imperiled wildlife, all of which recognize the importance not only of preventing global extinction but also of preventing ecological extinction and extirpation across significant portions of a species' range.

scholarly journals Structured Decision-Making Incorporates Stakeholder Values into Management Decisions Thereby Fulfilling Moral and Legal Obligations to Conserve Species

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 250-265
Author(s):  
William R. Brignon ◽  
Carl B. Schreck ◽  
Howard A. Schaller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Endangered Species ◽  
Conservation Planning ◽  
Endangered Species Act ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Decisions ◽  
Stakeholder Values ◽  
Structured Decision Making ◽  
Moral Philosophies

Abstract More than 1,500 species of plants and animals in the United States are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act and habitat destruction is the leading cause of population decline. However, developing conservation plans that are consistent with a diversity of stakeholder (e.g., states, tribes, private landowners) values is difficult. Adaptive management and structured decision-making are frameworks that resource managers can use to integrate diverse and conflicting stakeholder value systems into species recovery planning. Within this framework difficult decisions are deconstructed into the three basic components: explicit, quantifiable objectives that represent stakeholder values; mathematical models used to predict the effect of management decisions on the outcome of objectives; and management alternatives or actions. We use Bull Trout Salvelinus confluentus, a species listed in 1999 as threatened pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, as an example of how structured decision-making transparently incorporates stakeholder values and biological information into conservation planning and the decision process. Three moral philosophies—consequentialism, deontology, and virtue theory—suggest that structured decision-making is a justified method that can guide natural resource decisions in the future, consistent with United States Congress' mandate, and will honor society's obligation to recover Endangered Species Act listed species and their habitats. Natural sciences offer a biological basis for predicting the outcomes of decisions. Additionally, an understanding of how to integrate humanities into scientifically defensible conservation planning is helpful in providing the foundation for lasting and effective species conservation.

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