Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 11:49:16 -0500 (EST) From: Competitive Enterprise Institute To: Recipients of the CEI List Subject: CEI List: Endangered Still? Taking Undue Credit for Saving Endangered Species by Brian Seasholes Appeared in the Washington Times, November 24, 1995, p. A23. Environmental lobbyists and the federal government constantly assert that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a monumental success. In late October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released its 1994 Report to Congress which purports to document "the success of the Service's efforts to recover" species listed under the ESA. The report's main point is that the longer a species is listed, the greater the chance it is doing well. Ironically, the report fails to substantiate this claim because the data on which it is based are fundamentally flawed. The FWS has no comprehensive data on how various species were doing when they were listed, nor how they have fared in the intervening years. Absent these indispensable reference points, the data are nothing but selective snapshots. For example, the Tinian monarch (a species of bird in the south Pacific) was listed when the ESA was passed. The monarch had declined due to heavy fighting in WW II, but "[i]t is likely that the species had recovered to near pre-disturbance [prewar] levels by the time the Service listed," admits the FWS. Even though the ESA had nothing to do with the monarch's rebound, the FWS still claims credit for its "stabilization." There are other problems with the report. Many "improving" or "stabilized" species did not achieve their status as a result of the ESA any more than the Tinian monarch. For example, the peregrine falcon in the western U.S. is labeled as "improving." The peregrine declined over much of this area due to the pesticide DDT, which caused widespread reproductive failure. Yet DDT was banned in 1972, one year before the ESA was passed. The ESA cannot claim credit for the single most important reason for the peregrine's rebound. Moreover, approximately 250 out of 783 peregrine pairs are "data errors;" which means they existed all along but were not discovered until after listing. And finally, the report claims the peregrine "benefitted greatly...from...broad-based public involvement in the raising of thousands of falcons in captivity for their eventual reintroduction to the wild." In reality, peregrine breeding efforts are almost totally due to one private group, the Peregrine Fund. Tom Cade, founder of the Peregrine Fund, contends that with or without FWS funding, his organization would have undertaken equally successful captive breeding and reintroduction efforts. A further measure of the ESA's effectiveness is recovery goals achieved. The report states recovery is "the ultimate purpose of the endangered species program." The "primary objectives" are to complete and implement recovery plans and then delist the species. Recovery plans have specific goals which, if met, should lead to species' recovery. Thus the 54 percent of listed species with recovery plans are those for which the ESA should be working most effectively. In order to quantify the progress made by individual species towards achieving their recovery goals, the report assigns a numerical value of 1 to signify that 0-25 percent of the goals have been achieved; 2 for 26-50 percent; 3 for 51-75 percent; and 4 for 76-100 percent. These four categories, however, are useless because of the inconsistency of recovery goals. The California Condor, for example, has one recovery goal that requires spending $7 million to acquire habitat, an obviously expensive and complex undertaking. But another recovery goal for the condor is to provide private landowners with information at the cost of $6,000, a relatively simple and inexpensive goal. Without any measure of the magnitude of individual recovery goals, the percentage of recovery goals achieved is a meaningless statistic. But, for argument's sake, let's suppose the percentage of recovery goals achieved is meaningful. The FWS seems to think so. "Overall, the data on stable or increasing species illustrates that while recovery of listed species takes time it can be achieved," proclaims the report. One would expect those species that are improving or stabilized, and have achieved the greatest percentage of their recovery goals (76-100 percent), to be the exemplars of ESA success. Yet only 12 species (5 percent) have reached this level. Of these lucky dozen, the status of at least one third has had little, if anything, to do with the act. This calls into doubt the relevance of recovery goals achieved to species' status. Casting even more doubt over the connection between the ESA and species' status is that fully 80 percent of the species that are improving or stabilized have achieved less than half their recovery goals. In short, the FWS' claim that its "data on stable and increasing species illustrates that while recovery of listed species takes times it can be achieved" is bogus. The FWS made similar claims of ESA success in its 1990 Report to Congress. Research by the National Wilderness Institute showed that the incompleteness of the data invalidated the FWS' claims. For the 1994 Report to Congress the FWS has massaged the data differently, but the same fundamental deficiencies remain. By falsely attributing species' status to the Act, the FWS is misleading Congress and the public about the ESA. FWS claims notwithstanding, the ESA has little to do with species' status. Just don't expect the FWS to admit this anytime soon. Tagline: Brian Seasholes is an Environmental Research Associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. _______ ________ __________ / | | | |_______ | | | | \ _______ |_______ __________ COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 1001 Connecticut Ave. NW #1250 Washington, DC 20036 202-331-1010, fax 202-331-0640 Permission to reprint must be obtained from the publishing journal listed above. Permission to copy granted as long as these lines are left intact. To subscribe to the cei list, send a message to CEI@digex.com. "The Virtual Hand: CEI's free-market guide to the information superhighway" is available for $5. CEI's monthly newsletter, "CEI UpDate," is free to contributors of $25.