Happy Birthday to the ESA!

Richard Nixon, by most accounts, was not an especially nice man, and his Presidency and its scandals have impacted our politics in ways that we are still dealing with today (such as, I don't know, can you or can you not criminally prosecute a former POTUS?)  So much of the conversation about Tricky Dick is tied up with Watergate and its fallout, that many people tend to overlook the truth that there were, in fact, some good things to come out of his administration.  

One such jewel was the US Endangered Species Act, signed into law this day, December 28, fifty years ago in 1973.  It was the sort of bipartisan commitment to protecting America's wild heritage that it's almost impossible to imagine coming out of Washington (or any State House) these days.  

The law not only identified which species are endangered and took steps to reduce take (capture or killing) of them.  It required the government to identify steps that could be taken to restore species that were on the decline, including the protection and restoration of habitat.  

Mexican gray wolf at the Endangered Wolf Center and loggerhead turtle at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, both photographed by Joel Sartore for National Geographic's Photo Ark.

Since it's signing, a few dozen species have been removed from the list.  Most of them have gotten off in what I like to call "the good way" - their numbers improved and they are no longer considered to be in imminent danger of extinction.  Others... well, there's another way to no longer be an endangered species, and it's by becoming an extinct species.  Species that we have lost include the little Mariana fruit bat, Bachman's warbler, and the bridled white-eye.  

Like any act of government, the ESA has its detractors who view it as over-reaching or imposing on individual freedoms.  On the other hand, the government (both Republican and Democratic administrations) is constantly being sued by environmental groups who say it's not doing enough to save certain species that are in need of more protection.  Both sides have accused the law of being ineffective.  Evidence so far does not support that claim. The NIH estimates that approximately 300 species, in contrast, have been saved from extinction by their inclusion on the list.  Perhaps none is as iconic as our national symbol, the bald eagle.