![\"Interior](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2228905554-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum speaks during a news conference at the White House on Aug. 11. Credit: Yasin Ozturk\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Since January, the Endangered Species Act has been a frequent target of the Trump administration, which claims that the law\u2019s strict regulations inhibit development and \u201cenergy domination.\u201d Several recent executive orders direct the federal government to change ESA regulations in a way that could enable businesses\u2014fossil fuel firms in particular\u2014to bypass the typical environmental reviews associated with project approval.<\/p>\n
More broadly, though, Burgum and other conservative politicians<\/a> are implying the law is ineffective at achieving its main goal: recovering biodiversity. But a number of biologists, environmental groups and legal experts say that recovery delays for endangered species are not a result of the law itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, they point to systemically low conservation funding and long-standing political flip-flopping as wildlife faces mounting threats from climate change and widespread habitat loss.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to wait until species are in dire straits before we protect them under the Endangered Species Act,\u201d said David Wilcove, a professor of ecology, evolutionary biology and public affairs at Princeton University, \u201cand in doing that, we are more or less ensuring that it\u2019s going to be very difficult to recover them and get them off the list.\u201d<\/p>\n Endangered Species by the Numbers<\/p>\n Since the Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have listed more than 2,370 species of plants and animals as threatened or endangered\u2014from schoolbus-sized North Atlantic right whales off the East Coast to tiny Oahu tree snails in Hawaii. In some cases, the list covers biodiversity abroad<\/a> to prevent further harm from the global wildlife trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once a plant or animal is added, it receives certain protections by the federal government to stanch population losses. Those measures include safeguards from adverse effects of federal activities, restrictions on hunting or development and active conservation plans like seed planting or captive rearing of animals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite these steps, only 54 of the several thousand species listed from 1973 to 2021 recovered to the point where they no longer needed protection. A number of factors play into this low recovery rate, according to a 2022 study<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The team of researchers who worked on it dove into the population sizes for species of concern, the timelines of their listings and recovery efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n A few trends emerged: Most of the imperiled plants and animals in the U.S. do not receive protections until their populations have fallen to \u201cdangerously low levels,\u201d with less genetic diversity and more vulnerability to extinction from extreme events like severe weather or disease outbreaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, the process to get a species listed frequently took several years, allowing time for populations to dip even lower, said Wilcove, a co-author of the study.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simply a biological fact that if you don\u2019t start protecting a species until it\u2019s down to a small number of individuals, you\u2019re going to face a long uphill battle,\u201d he said. On top of that, \u201cthere are more species in trouble, but at the same time, we are providing less funding on a per-species basis for the Fish and Wildlife Service, so we\u2019re basically asking them to do more and more with less and less.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n These findings echo a similar paper Wilcove co-authored in 1993<\/a>. Since that analysis was published, the number of listings has risen, while federal funding per species has dropped substantially. \u201cHotel California\u201d isn\u2019t the right analogy for the endangered species list, in Wilcove\u2019s view: He says it\u2019s more akin to \u201cthe critical care unit of the hospital\u201d\u2014one that is struggling to stay afloat.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s as though you built a great hospital and then didn\u2019t pay any money for medical equipment or doctors,\u201d he said. \u201cThe hospital isn\u2019t going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simply a biological fact that if you don\u2019t start protecting a species until it\u2019s down to a small number of individuals, you\u2019re going to face a long uphill battle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 David Wilcove, Princeton University<\/p>\n Even so, it has prevented a lot of deaths, experts say. Since the law was passed, just 26 listed species have gone extinct, many of which had not been seen in the wild for years prior to their listing. An estimated 47 species have perished while being considered for a listing, as they were still exposed to the threats that helped reduce their populations in the first place, according to an analysis by the High Country News<\/a>. Some listing decisions take more than a decade.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the marquee statistic is how few animals have gone extinct under the watch of the federal government,\u201d said Andrew Mergen, the director of Harvard Law School\u2019s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. He spent more than 30 years serving as legal counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he litigated a bevy of cases related to the Endangered Species Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur goal should be to get them off the list and to recover them, but it requires a commitment to this enterprise that we don\u2019t see very often,\u201d Mergen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n History shows it can be done. Bald eagles\u2014widely considered an emblem of American patriotism\u2014nearly disappeared in the 1960s<\/a>, with just 417 known nesting pairs left in the lower 48 states. This was largely due to habitat loss and the pesticide DDT, which caused eagle eggshells to become too brittle to survive incubation. By the time the bald eagle was listed as threatened or endangered in all lower 48 states in 1978, DDT had been outlawed, a regulation that the ESA helped enforce, experts say.\u00a0<\/p>\n This step, along with captive breeding programs, reintroduction efforts, law enforcement and habitat protection, helped recover populations to nearly 10,000 nesting pairs. In 2007, bald eagles came off the list. Other once-endangered animals like American alligators and Steller sea lions have also been delisted in recent decades due to targeted limits on actions that led to their decline, such as hunting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Recovery gets trickier when threats to species are more multi-faceted, according to Taal Levi, an associate professor at Oregon State University.<\/p>\n \u201cThe other class of species with complex, multicausal, or poorly understood threats can be like Hotel California,\u201d Levi said over email. \u201cThis is in part because we don\u2019t always have funding to research the threats, and if we identify them, we don\u2019t always have funding to mitigate the threats.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That is particularly true for the primary driver of biodiversity decline: habitat loss. Levi studies the endangered Humboldt marten, a small carnivore that lives on the Northern California and Southern Oregon coast. The animal was once widespread, but logging in old-growth and coniferous forests decimated their habitats. Now, Levi said it is difficult to fund research that helps unveil basic things about the animals, including what constitutes high-quality habitats. Other animals like endangered Florida panthers also struggle to maintain high populations in environments fragmented by urbanization.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes being in Hotel California isn\u2019t the worst thing,\u201d Levi wrote in his email. \u201cWe\u2019d prefer that Florida Panthers expand into other available habitat to the North of South Florida, but in lieu of that, maintaining them on the ESA seems wise to prevent their extinction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Private Lands Predicament<\/p>\n The federal government manages around 640 million acres of public lands and more than 3.4 million nautical miles of ocean<\/a>, and it has final say on how endangered species are protected within these areas. However, more than two-thirds of species listed under the Endangered Species Act depend at least in part on private lands, with 10 percent residing only on such property<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The law prohibits any action that would harm a listed species wherever it might be, even if unintentionally. There is also a provision that enables the government to designate certain \u201ccritical habitat\u201d areas that are crucial for a species\u2019 survival, including on private land.\u00a0<\/p>\n As a result, landowners and businesses often see endangered species as a detriment to their operations, said Jonathan Adler, an environmental law professor at William & Mary Law School in Virginia.<\/p>\n \u201cYour ability to use that land is going to be limited, and you can be prosecuted. \u2026 That creates a lot of conflict, and it discourages landowners from being cooperative,\u201d he said. Adler published a paper in 2024<\/a> that argued the Endangered Species Act has been largely ineffective at conserving species, mainly due to the private land problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n In some cases, this dynamic can create what Adler calls \u201cperverse incentives\u201d for landowners to destroy a habitat before a species is found on their land or listed to avoid any restrictions or costs associated with the endangered label.\u00a0<\/p>\n Take the red-cockaded woodpecker, which typically relies on old-growth pine trees for nesting. This bird was part of the first cohort listed as endangered under the Act, which limited timber production in many areas of North Carolina. However, an analysis of timber harvests from 1984 to 1990 found that the closer a timber plot was to red-cockaded woodpeckers, the more likely the pines were to be harvested at a young age. This was most likely to prevent the trees from reaching maturity, and avoid critical habitat regulation altogether, according to the 2007 study<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Adler argues that the ESA in its current form has too many sticks and not enough carrots. Over the years, Congress has implemented a few strategies to incentivize biodiversity protection on private lands, including providing tax benefits or purchasing conservation easements. This voluntary legal agreement allows an individual to receive compensation for a portion of their land while still owning it, in exchange for agreeing to certain restrictions, such as limiting development or following sustainable farming practices. Environmental groups often purchase conservation easements as well.<\/p>\n This strategy has helped protect animals like the California tiger salamander<\/a>, San Joaquin kit fox<\/a>, waterfowls<\/a> and other imperiled species. However, providing incentives to landowners for conservation is becoming less common under the Trump administration, Princeton\u2019s Wilcove said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Department of the Interior did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t reduce the prohibition on harming endangered species, but you should make it easier for landowners to do the right thing, and there are ways for doing that, and this administration is not a champion of those ways,\u201d Wilcove said. \u201cWe\u2019re waiting too long to protect species, and when we get around to protecting them, we\u2019re not giving the government sufficient resources to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Is the Endangered Species Act Itself Endangered?\u00a0<\/p>\n The Endangered Species Act was passed with wide bipartisan support. But it has become one of the most highly litigated environmental laws in the U.S. in part because anyone can petition to have a species listed as endangered.<\/p>\n A number of conservative presidential administrations and members of Congress have tried to soften the law\u2019s power, but more environmentally minded administrations often strengthened it once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a very strong law, partly because so much of the public supports it<\/a>,\u201d said Kristen Boyles, an attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice, which has frequently filed ESA-related lawsuits. \u201cWhenever legislative changes have been proposed, we\u2019ve pretty much been able to defeat those.\u201d<\/p>\n But experts say things may be different this time around as the Trump administration takes a more accelerated and aggressive approach to the ESA at a time when environmentalists can\u2019t count on the Supreme Court to push back.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since January, the president has issued several executive orders that would allow certain fossil fuel projects to get a fast-pass trip through environmental reviews, including those that could harm endangered animals or plants. In April, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rescinding<\/a> certain habitat protections for endangered species, effectively allowing such activities as logging and oil drilling even if they degrade the surrounding environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior and NOAA have in recent months cut funding for conservation programs and laid off many of the people responsible for carrying out the Endangered Species Act\u2019s mandate. That includes rangers who were monitoring animals like the endangered Pacific fisher in California\u2019s Yosemite National Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re lurching between administrations that care and administrations that are hostile, it\u2019s going to be very hard to make progress.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 David Wilcove, Princeton University<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that I would say to [Secretary Burgum] is that you have a duty to faithfully execute the law as a member of the executive branch as it was enacted by Congress,\u201d Harvard\u2019s Mergen said. \u201cThat\u2019s going to mean that you should not cut all your biologists out, but invest in the recovery of these species, understanding what\u2019s putting them at risk and mitigating those harms.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservation funding declined long before Trump entered office, so there is \u201cplenty of blame to go around,\u201d Wilcove said. But political flip-flopping on how recovery projects are carried out inhibit their effectiveness, he added. \u201cIf you\u2019re lurching between administrations that care and administrations that are hostile, it\u2019s going to be very hard to make progress.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For all the discussion about the economic costs of endangered species regulations, studies show that funding biodiversity protection has a strong return on investment for society.\u00a0<\/p>\n For instance, coastal mangroves around the world reduce property damage from storms by more than $65 billion annually and protect more than 15 million people, according to 2020 research<\/a>. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that<\/a> insect crop pollination equates to $34 billion in value each year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Protecting vulnerable animals can also benefit industries that depend on healthy landscapes and oceans. Researchers estimated<\/a> in 2007 that protecting water flow in the Rio Grande River in Texas for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow produces average annual benefits of over $200,000 per year for west Texas agriculture, and over $1 million for El Paso municipal and industrial water users.\u00a0<\/p>\n Endangered species can be a boon for the outdoor tourism industry, too. NOAA Fisheries estimates<\/a> that the endangered North Atlantic right whale generated $2.3 billion in sales in the whale-watching industry and across the broader economy in 2008 alone, compared to annual costs of about $30 million related to shipping and fishing restrictions protecting them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond financial gains, humanity has pulled a wealth of knowledge from nature to help treat and cure diseases. For example, the anti-cancer compound paclitaxel was originally extracted from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, and is \u201ctoo fiendishly complex\u201d a chemical structure for researchers to have invented on their own, according to the federal government<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Preventing endangered species from going extinct ensures that we can someday still discover what we don\u2019t yet know, according to Dave Owen, an environmental law professor at the University of California Law San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cEven seemingly simple species are extraordinarily complex; they contain an incredible variety of chemicals, microbes, and genetic adaptations, all of which we can learn from\u2014but only if the species is still around,\u201d he said over email.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last month, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced<\/a> that the Roanoke logperch\u2014a freshwater fish\u2014has recovered enough to be removed from the endangered species list altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a post on X<\/a>, the Interior secretary declared this is \u201cproof that the Endangered Species List is no longer Hotel California. Under the Trump admin, species can finally leave!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But this striped fish\u2019s recovery didn\u2019t happen overnight. Federal agencies, local partners, landowners and conservationists spent more than three decades, millions of dollars and countless hours removing obsolete dams, restoring wetlands and reintroducing fish populations to help pull the Roanoke logperch back from the brink. And it was the Biden administration that first proposed delisting the fish in 2024<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n These types of success stories give reasons for hope, Wilcove said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019m optimistic about is our ability to save species, if we put our mind and our resources to it.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n Thank you,<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/EndangeredSpeciesDelisted700px.png\"\/)
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A bald eagle takes flight at the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho. Credit: Kathy Bolam\/USFWS<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-639203958-scaled.jpg\"\/)
People observe North Atlantic right whales from a boat in Canada\u2019s Bay of Fundy. Credit: Francois Gohier\/VW Pics\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Kiley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screen-Shot-2023-09-13-at-1.25.16-PM.png\"\/)
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