Today, the rate of species extinction has intensified due to such things as climate crisis, habitat loss and exploitation through hunting and overfishing. In the years since, the authors said the population sizes when listed by ESA have remained largely unchanged. Viable population sizes for vertebrates are measured in the thousands, while invertebrates are even higher, explained Wilcove. The previous study found that from 1985 to 1991, the median population size when a species was listed by ESA was 1,075 for vertebrates and 999 for invertebrates. “Then after the passage of almost 30 years, the question was, had anything changed? And the answer is no.” “In that paper we called for earlier protection of declining species,” explained David S Wilcove, professor of ecology at Princeton University, and an author on both the new and previous studies. The study built on a report published in 1993 that painted a similarly bleak picture of the law. The ESA advises that there be only a two-year wait period, as longer delays can put a species, whose population is already very small, at greater risk.īut the report explained that the low population numbers probably had more to do with a long backlog of rare species, rather than a sudden decline in more common species while they waited to be listed. ![]() In more recent years, it has been reduced to three years. “Now we’re 20 years after the fact, it’s still an imperiled species listed by ESA,” he said.īetween 19 the average wait time for species petitioned for listing was 5.9 years, while between 20, it was 9.1 years, according to the study. ![]() The authors explained that typically by the time a species has received protection, it has already reached “dangerously low population sizes”, which makes recovery extremely difficult.Įberhard gave the example of the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, which was listed as endangered in 2000 when its population had been reduced to as few as 100 individuals. The new report, which examined data from the Federal Register, found that since 1985, one of the main sources of funding for ESA has decreased by almost 50% when measured on a per species basis.Īlthough the law has been shown to be effective when it comes to keeping species from going extinct (it has saved over 99% of listed species from extinction, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service), it has not been as successful when it comes to species recovery. ![]() “It’s unfortunate that while we have this very noble law, we haven’t really given it the resources it needs to succeed,” said Erich K Eberhard, an author on the study.
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