You’ve heard of endangered species. But how much do you know about the U.S. Endangered Species Act, which marks its 50th birthday this month?
Signed by President Richard Nixon on Dec. 28, 1973, the Endangered Species Act is one of the strongest environmental laws in the world. It passed Congress with nearly unanimous support. Its deceptively simple purpose is “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.” But it has since provoked intense controversy, especially in the U.S. West.
Where can I see the effects of the Endangered Species Act in my daily life?
Chances are that you learned about endangered blue whales, gray wolves or whooping cranes back in elementary school. The Endangered Species Act introduced species endangerment and human-caused extinction to our common vocabulary and raised society-wide concern about extinction — a concern that persists despite the political polarization surrounding the law itself. That concern is demonstrated by the work of countless river restoration projects, backyard habitat campaigns, wildlife-crossing initiatives and other community-led endeavors throughout the West and beyond. The challenge — for us and our wayward political representatives — is to fund and support these efforts so that they, and we, can meet the growing threats.
What are “endangered” and “threatened” species, anyway?
The law describes an endangered species as any species that’s in danger of extinction — total and permanent elimination — “throughout all or a significant portion of its range.” A threatened species, meanwhile, is “any species which is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future.” The Endangered Species Act applies to all plants and animals, except for insects classified as pests.
The decision to classify — or “list” — a species as endangered or threatened is made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or, when appropriate, the National Marine Fisheries Service. Any individual or organization can petition for a species to be listed. The law sets tight deadlines for the agencies to respond to and rule on petitions, and petitioning organizations frequently sue over missed deadlines.
Does the Endangered Species Act actually work?
It depends on your definition of “work.”
The Endangered Species Act has prevented the extinction of many species we value today and restored a few of them to health: Over the past half-century, about 60 U.S. species that were once protected have been declared recovered, including icons like the bald eagle, peregrine falcon and gray whale, as well as lesser-known species such as the Oregon chub and Deseret milkvetch.
At the same time, 33 species listed as threatened or endangered have been declared extinct. And the law has yet to fulfill its goal of protecting the ecosystems that endangered and threatened species depend on. Chronic funding shortages at the state and federal level have taken a toll, limiting habitat protection and restoration — and leaving many species vulnerable to climate disruption.
How does the Endangered Species Act protect endangered and threatened species?
Once a species is “listed,” the Endangered Species Act prohibits federal agencies from funding or carrying out any actions that will jeopardize the species or damage its “critical habitat,” the areas determined essential to its conservation.
The law also prohibits the harm, harassment, collection or killing — called “taking” — of endangered or threatened species on both public and private land. Private landowners can enter into agreements with the federal government to allow development without increasing the risk of species extinction. (See below.)
How did a once-popular law become so controversial?
Blame the “timber wars” of the 1990s.
While public debate over the Endangered Species Act and its consequences began shortly after Nixon signed the law, historian Lowell Baier points out that its supporters and critics in Congress managed to work productively together through the 1970s and most of the 1980s. Those relationships began to break down in 1988, when a coalition of environmental groups desperate to protect the Pacific Northwest’s remaining ancient forests sued to designate the northern spotted owl as a threatened species. Westerners old enough to remember will recall the extraordinary bitterness — and occasional violence — that ensued: Public relations consultants hired by the timber industry framed the conflict as “owls vs. jobs,” escalating hostilities between timber communities and environmentalists and further radicalizing anti-federal activists throughout the West.
The Northwest Forest Plan, developed by the Clinton administration and adopted by federal agencies in 1994, brought an official end to the hostilities, but the underlying tensions have endured. The controversy entrenched political attitudes toward the Endangered Species Act to such an extent that Congress has not managed to substantively update it since 1988.
Does the Endangered Species Act apply to tribal lands?
It’s complicated. Beyond Alaska Native subsistence hunting rights, the Endangered Species Act does not acknowledge tribal sovereignty. Despite attempts to address this oversight, exactly how — or even if — the law applies to endangered and threatened species on tribal lands remains unclear.
Still, tribal governments have used the Endangered Species Act to protect imperiled, culturally important species in general, suing over dams that block salmon migration and securing funding to reintroduce protected species on their lands. Yet for tribes seeking to not only prevent extinctions but restore traditional hunting relationships, the Endangered Species Act is often not enough. Instead, they have to go beyond the requirements of the law: The Confederated Colville Tribes, for example, have conducted their own reintroduction efforts on Colville lands bringing back species like pronghorn, bison and bighorn sheep as well as lynx and salmon. Tribal Chairman Jarred-Michael Erickson, a wildlife biologist, says the ultimate goal of such projects is for species to “not just recover, but flourish.”
Does the Endangered Species Act block development?
Not necessarily. The decision to classify a species as threatened or endangered cannot be based on the potential economic impacts of that listing. (The Trump administration removed this prohibition from the law, but the Biden administration restored it in June 2023.) However, economic impacts can be considered when deciding what habitat is critical to a species’ survival.
When threatened and endangered species occur on private land, landowners who wish to develop that property can negotiate an agreement with the federal government to protect endangered species and their habitats over the long term while allowing some development to move forward. These agreements, called habitat conservation plans, typically permit landowners to “incidentally” harm or kill individual members of protected species in the course of a project’s development. Landowners can also participate in Safe Harbor Agreements, under which they contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered species on their property in exchange for protection against future regulations.
The law prevents species from going extinct. But how does it protect them from becoming endangered in the first place?
If the U.S. approach to protecting other species were a hospital, it would be an emergency room and not much else. Most of the responsibility for protecting not-yet-endangered species — call it preventive care — lies with state wildlife agencies, which have historically focused on boosting populations of popular game species. In recent decades, many state agencies have expanded their programs to include all species, but funding and staff shortages limit their effectiveness. One potentially transformative solution is the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, a bipartisan bill first introduced in 2016, which would provide about $1.4 billion in dedicated annual funding for proactive conservation work by state, territorial and tribal governments.
Michelle Nijhuis is a contributing editor of HCN and the author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction.
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This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, funded by the BAND Foundation.
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