The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is regarded as "one of the most powerful and controversial environmental laws in the United States." In 2023, with the Act achieving its 50th anniversary, journalists were prompted to report on the Act's outcomes and controversies. Congressional overturning of several recent listings and ability to hamper implementation by restricting agency funding were among the points mentioned by some media. A foundation associated with the
Western Caucus of U.S. senators and representatives issued a 116-page report in 2023 titled "The Endangered Species Act at 50", with a subtitle expressing its primary criticism that "a record of falsified recoveries underscores a lack of scientific integrity in the federal program." Specific challenges and long-term controversies are summarized in this multi-part section. Support for learning and evaluating the history of ESA implementation is an online system maintained by the federal government whereby a great variety of reports published during the five decades of endangered species implementation can be accessed. The numbers and complexity of those documents are the focus of the fourth topical section included below. For now, the list shown here is just one section of the gateway webpage Because some of the challenges and controversies arising from implementation of the federal Act entail interactions with various state governmental priorities and programs, it is important to establish the background of state jurisdiction. A lengthy report prepared by the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) and periodically updated states: Section 6 of the ESA requires the Secretary to cooperate with the states to the maximum extent practicable in conserving federally protected species. FWS and courts have recognized the states' "key role" in regulating wildlife and catalyzing conservation efforts by landowners and communities on private land. A 2025 CRS report is titled "The Role of the States Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)." A 2024 report commissioned by
The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators is titled "A Natural Legacy for the Future: State Laws for Endangered and Threatened Species." Both difficulties and successes in state-level actions and across-state cooperation are highlighted in this 179 page report. For example, downlisting of the
Chiricahua leopard frog from endangered to threatened is attributed to state-level efforts by Arizona and New Mexico. The need for a federal listing of the
Mardon skipper butterfly was avoided, owing to cooperative early efforts by the states of Washington, Oregon, and California. In practice through the decades, the federal-state relationship has not always been congenial. Elected officials at both federal and state levels sometimes escalate calls for outright devolving endangered species management to the states. An overall federal policy for collaboration, however, is not achievable because the kinds and scale of species-protective laws, regulations, and implementation priorities vary enormously among the states. Examples of state-level diversity are that (1) only 18 of the 50 states automatically include in their own lists all animals and plants listed by the federal Act that are present in their state; (2) 17 states offer no protection for any plants; and (3)
West Virginia and
Wyoming have no statutory support for protecting even animals threatened with extinction. As well, only
California and
Oregon authorize citizens to petition for state-level listings, and distinctions prevail in matters concerning critical habitat designations and the degree to which species protections can impinge on land use choices by private owners. The legislature itself chose to pass this law after the federal agency had formally decided against listing on two occasions: August 2019 and March 2023. The second decision had been forced by a 2021 court remand of the 2019 decision, An important distinction of California's 2023 Joshua Tree statute is that it did not confer even state-level listing of this plant as threatened or endangered. Instead, a highly collaborative "
Western Joshua Tree Conservation Plan" would be established and implemented (the draft was published December 2024). This would pre-empt the need for California's state-level Fish and Game Commission to decide upon an already pending listing petition in accordance with the
California Endangered Species Act (CESA). The draft plan states "The Conservation Plan identifies management actions that are intended to conserve western Joshua tree and its habitat such that listing under CESA will not be necessary." Despite the State of California's initiative, a national environmental organization (
WildEarth Guardians), went to the federal court system again. In May 2025, the court ruled in their behalf. As reported in a news article, When deciding whether the Joshua tree should be considered threatened or endangered for the "foreseeable future," the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only considered the future through 2069. The court ruling determined that the agency's definition of the foreseeable future was "arbitrary and capricious," and that the agency "did not use best available science regarding the threat of climate change," among other findings. A 2018 research law paper presented the importance of state-level jurisdiction and collaboration in this way: The Endangered Species Act (ESA) may well be the most contentious of the federal environmental statutes. It certainly is the most controversial of the conservation laws outside the purview of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yet, in congressional hearing after congressional hearing, one consensus rises above the rancor. All parties agree that states should play a greater role in preventing extinctions. That same month, the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife euthanized four federally endangered wolves that had recently established in a cattle ranching part of the state. The agency explained that a small wolf pack had become "so reliant on cattle at an unprecedented level, and we could not break the cycle, which ultimately is not good for the long-term recovery of wolves or for people."
Executive, legislative, and judicial entanglements The petitioning, listing, and recovery planning stages prescribed in the Act have a history not only of contentiousness but of delays and setbacks owing to all three branches of the federal government sometimes becoming involved. This is especially the case when a federal listing would apply to an animal whose widely dispersed populations are declining over a vast landscape. Potential listing of the
Lesser prairie-chicken is one such example. In 1995 the
Center for Biological Diversity, along with other conservation groups, petitioned for listing the lesser prairie-chicken. Agency recognition of the bird as a "candidate species" in 1998 deferred formal review while the agency worked its way through a backlog of previous petitions. In an effort to achieve habitat improvement agreements with state and private landowners prior to (and possibly thereby precluding) a listing decision, a "voluntary prelisting conservation program" was launched in 2010 — not by the
U.S. Department of Interior (which includes the
Fish and Wildlife Service), but by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture. This government-led project was unusual for an at-risk species in that it was launched with the expressed intent to promote the long-term sustainability of ranching operations while improving the population and occupied territory of the lesser prairie-chicken. That project did not advance well enough to preclude a listing petition in 2012, which resulted in a formal listing as "threatened" in 2014. This action was overturned by the courts in 2015, when it was challenged by business interests associated with oil and gas extraction. However, in 2023 Congress passed a bill that negated the listing, which was promptly vetoed by
President Biden. In 2025, a federal court in Texas ruled in favor of a case filed by the
State of Texas and several petroleum companies that pointed to problems in the 2022 listing decision. The
Trump Administration did not defend against the lawsuit and even requested the court to overturn the listing rule. As summarized by the
Sierra Club, "The court denied intervention by environmental groups who sought to defend the rule or prevent its vacatur, which meant no party in the lawsuit objected to the Fish and Wildlife Service's about face or acted to protect the species." February 2026 a regulatory posting delisted both the northern and southern populations. In sum, from 1998 to early 2026, two executive agencies of the federal government, two judicial actions, and one attempt by Congress to overturn a listing decision all played roles in how the Endangered Species Act would be applied to the conservation of the Lesser prairie-chicken. An even more complicated example is the gray wolf, as presented in a 2020 report by the
Congressional Research Service subtitled, "A Case Study in Listing and Delisting Challenges." To begin, the statute requires that agency decisions on listings must not be influenced by political, corporate, or citizen concerns that such listings could impinge on access to natural resources on public lands or how private landowners choose to manage their own properties. Rather, listings are to be based "solely" on the science. But even peer-reviewed science publications can be at odds, thus offering grounds for opposing parties to each present rational arguments that their position is more in line with the science than that of their opponents. lists and links a number of its endangered species reports. In practice, agency decisions are sometimes challenged by biodiversity proponents who assert that "the best available science" would compel stronger listing protections. Decisions are also sometimes challenged by oppositional interest groups, notably by those grounded in business, extractive industry, or landowner rights perspectives. The 2025 review also reports that the Act itself employs language that generates dispute among experts: "In addition, agencies spent valuable resources in courtrooms defending their definitions of subjective terms like 'significant portion of range', 'historic', 'critical habitat', 'foreseeable future', and even 'species', with many conservation scientists offering expert testimony." Overturn of the
Chevron deference by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024 With respect to the ESA, however, critics of citizen rights to petition for listing have charged that "most citizen-initiated listings are driven primarily by political motives, particularly to block development projects." was among 53 amphibians and reptiles petitioned for listing. In 2011 a "mega-settlement" was achieved by the agency, WildEarth Guardians, and another biodiversity advocate group,
Center for Biological Diversity. The settlement required FWS to take action on pending petitions for 757 species over the next seven years. In exchange, the two environmental groups agreed to limit lawsuits filed against the agency so that efforts could be focused on trying to accomplish the terms of the agreement. The following year, however, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted a single petition for listing a total of 53 amphibians and reptiles spanning a range of 45 states. The petition entailed 454 pages. The list of citizen petitioners included two well-known ecological scientists:
Edward O. Wilson and
Thomas Lovejoy. This action provoked a written statement by the chair of the
United States House Committee on Natural Resources: While the recent petition does not directly violate the terms of the settlement, it does divert money and resources away from species recovery and disregards the spirit of the settlement by adding to the Agency's backlog of petitions. Time and again, CBD and other similar groups have undermined the goal of the ESA by litigating, obstructing, and frustrating the FWS while racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded attorney fees that continue to feed their litigious strategies to the detriment of species and people. Finally, "citizen suits provide important constraints on agency discretion when environmental statutory mandates and the ideological outlook of presidential administrations diverge." In
Center for Biological Diversity v. Marina Point Development Corp., the plaintiffs filed citizen suit actions under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) against a developer, claiming violations by the construction project. After the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the developer appealed. On appeal, the court found that the plaintiffs had not met the 60-day notice requirement for their CWA claims and that the ESA claims were moot due to the delisting of the bald eagle in 2007. As a result, the appellate court ordered the vacatur of both the district court's judgment and its opinion. In
State of California v. Bernhardt, Ken Klemm managed a 4,000-acre bison ranch for over two decades, focusing on bison grazing. His efforts were restricted by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulations that treated species at minimal extinction risk similarly to those facing imminent danger. In 2019, the Department of Interior reformed the Endangered Species Act (ESA), reinstating a two-step protection system to alleviate burdens on landowners like Klemm. A lawsuit from 17 states and environmental groups challenged these reforms, leading Klemm to intervene. On July 5, 2022, a district court vacated the 2019 reforms without evaluating their legality. The Ninth Circuit subsequently ruled that federal regulations cannot be rescinded without judicial review, allowing the 2019 rules to remain while the agency undergoes a formal amendment process.
Rise in numbers and complexity of required documents Decisions on Petitions to List Citizens (including non-governmental organizations) are empowered to petition a species (or distinct population of a vertebrate species) to be designated as threatened or endangered. Decision documents (first in draft, then in final) are posted in the
Federal Register. Draft decisions are to be posted for comment within two years, but in practice it often takes the agency much longer. A
recovery plan (with or without critical habitat designations) is the major document prepared by the agency following a listing decision of threatened or endangered. Reviews of the plan, with updates if merited, are to be performed every five years.
Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) and subsequent permitting actions are administered by the
Environmental Protection Agency, with requirements for consulting with the Fish and Wildlife Service within specified time parameters. The same holds for actions and permitting authorities of the
Bureau of Land Management,
Forest Service, and
Army Corps of Engineers. Entities seeking development permits on federal lands may be required to develop "
Habitat Conservation Plans" (HCP) that may include mitigation efforts, monitoring, and even supporting additional field science. HCP documents can be accessed individually by the development project title through the ECOS portal. For example, the "Criterion Wind Power" project has an individual page. Its permit to proceed was issued in 2014 for a duration of 21 years. Subsidiary links include two versions of the HCP, two Biological Opinions, a NEPA-EA, a NEPA-FONSI, and a "Set of Findings". Finally, although not subject to public comment requirements via draft publication in the
Federal Register, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been making the recovery plan stage less complex by creating policy-free and science-rich "
Species Status Assessments" (SSA). These are posted on a dedicated ECOS portal, Controversy sometimes roils when the timing of a petition to list a new species overlaps with plans for or initiation of a development project that could be impeded by such a listing. A news editorial marking the 50th anniversary of the Act suggested that "the ESA became the weapon of choice for environmental groups seeking to stop projects or tear down others. Lawsuits by the score have been filed over projects large and small, setting off ill feelings toward environmental groups." Some observers opined that the impetus for listing was in part borne out of the species being considered a "flagship" for the
coastal sage scrub ecosystem of southern California—an area subject to significant pressure for housing development.
Economic consequences and perverse incentives Because the Act allowed species to be listed as endangered without consideration of the economic consequences, it soon became and continues to be controversial. Costs conferred on private landowners and various industries may come in the form of lost opportunity or slowing down operations to comply with the regulations put forth in the Act. Notably, in 1978 the
listing of a tiny fish (snail darter) shut down for several years construction of a dam that was already underway on the
Little Tennessee River. Due to political backlash stemming from the snail darter decision, in 1978 Congress amended the ESA to be more sensitive to costs. Among other changes, the 1978 amendments clarified the process for designating critical habitat, by requiring the consideration of economic impacts when designating critical habitat and providing a mechanism for excluding critical habitat where the benefits of exclusion would outweigh the benefits of designating the area as critical habitat. The 1978 amendments also amended the
Section 7 consultation process to authorize FWS and NMFS to allow projects that may affect listed species or habitat to continue if there are "reasonable and prudent alternatives" that minimize adverse impacts. These amendments to the critical habitat and Section 7 consultation processes (along with additional amendments made in 1982) were designed to offset the consequences of the cost-neutral process for the initial listing of species, and to improve flexibility in the ESA's application. |upright=.70 . Notwithstanding the 1978 and 1982 amendments, one widely held opinion remains that the protections afforded to listed species curtail economic activity. In the extreme, economic consequences can induce
perverse incentives by which landowners actively curtail their lands from attracting endangered species. An example in the eastern USA pertains to the endangered
red-cockaded woodpecker. A 1995 study of some 1,000 privately owned forest plots within the range of the woodpecker found that when landowners observed pine growth maturing to a stage in which it might attract nesting woodpeckers, they were more likely to harvest – regardless of timber prices at the time. This is a form of intentional
habitat destruction for avoiding economic consequences. By 2024, however, recovery actions had gone well enough for the federal agency to downlist the species from endangered to threatened. Downlisting was achieved in large part because of a linked pair of innovative conservation documents negotiated between landowners and the federal agency:
Conservation Benefit Agreement (CBA) and
Enhancement of Survival (EOS) permit. Legislators have expressed that the ESA has been "weaponized," particularly against western states, constraining state government choices about the use of public lands. The case of the protracted dispute over the
greater sage-grouse is one such example, In the extreme is the largely western saying pertaining to endangered animals, such as wolves: "
shoot, shovel, and shut up." Rep.
Don Young (Alaska), the longest-serving Republican congressman, said in 2018, "As the one person in the Congress, the only one, that voted for the Endangered Species Act, please beat me with a whip." Some economists have stated that finding a way to reduce such perverse incentives would lead to more effective protection of endangered species. One suggestion for ending perverse incentives would be to compensate property owners for protecting endangered species, rather than having an endangered species regarded as a potential financial loss. • would signal the accurate cost of land-use regulation, which would in turn lower the government's "overconsumption" of such regulation, • would foster more efficient land development, • would facilitate production of more reliable species data (because landowners would be more open to having scientists conducting research on their property), and, • would give landowners a reason to maintain their property in species-friendly condition. To work toward conservation solutions before perverse incentives develop, the "Conservation Without Conflict" initiative and coalition was formed in 2017, with guidance presented in a series of eight steps. Other collaborations supported by nongovernmental organizations focus on ranching and forestry stewardship initiatives. Ever since the Supreme Court ruling in the snail darter case, interest groups with a biocentric focus have had strong grounding for challenging agency listing decisions. As reported by the Congressional Research Service: Citizen suits frequently have been used to compel agency action and direct agency resources under the ESA. ESA citizen suits have been used to compel the Services to list, reclassify, or delist species; challenge delays in listing decisions; oppose listing, reclassification, or delisting rules; address critical habitat designations and revisions; and challenge BiOps [Biological Opinions] and use of the Section 7 consultation process. A subset of citizen suits has addressed deadlines under the ESA (i.e.,
deadline suits). The
Government Accountability Office reported that most deadline suits from 2005 to 2015 were related to the Services missing deadlines on petitions to list species under the ESA. The study found that most of the suits were resolved through settlements that established timelines for completing the listing process. The published document in the
Federal Register that establishes
Tiehm's buckwheat as an endangered species is 33 pages long, inclusive of a "critical habitat" designation for 910 acres that was simultaneously issued. Six of the total pages are responses to each of 29 comments elicited when the required draft of the listing was published. The foundational document that established the "best available science" for making the listing decision was previously published as a "
Species Status Assessment", which in itself was 80 pages long in PDF format.
Accommodating other national priorities in the
lithium-rich landscape of southern Nevada A recent example of competing priorities happened when the federal government was compelled to make a listing decision on a petition. In 2019 the
Center for Biological Diversity petitioned to have a small flowering plant in Nevada While economic concerns and priorities are restricted from playing a role in governmental listing decisions, the 1978 amendments to the Act did make it possible for these matters to impinge on the designation of critical habitat. which covers the first phase of the mine, it proposes avoiding a tiny island of land containing 75% of the buckwheat population. The island would be surrounded by an open pit mine and tailings dumps within just 12 feet of the rare wildflowers. Ioneer falsely claims this will conserve the buckwheat.... "Ioneer's 'Buckwheat Island' scenario would spell doom for this sensitive little flower," said Donnelly. "Now that the buckwheat is protected, we'll use the full power of the Endangered Species Act to ensure Ioneer doesn't harm one hair on a buckwheat's head." One of the links goes to "Ioneer's Buckwheat Protection Plan Summary: Proposed Conservation Measures for Tiehm's Buckwheat and Critical Habitat." Another page on the website describes the company's past and future conservation efforts. Two botanists have been hired to work in the greenhouse to conduct research "to develop protection measures that will ensure the plant can thrive in natural conditions, including the extremes posed by climate change."
Effectiveness , delisted 1987 Among the most celebrated successes is that of the
American alligator. This reptile was listed as endangered in 1967. Twenty years later it was delisted as fully recovered. The most controversial measure of effectiveness, however, pertained to the published number of cumulatively listed species that had gone
extinct. As the autumn of 2023 began, the official number was 11. But another 23 species had gone missing for so long that in September 2021 the agency had published a 41-page draft ruling in the
Federal Register to officially declare those 23 species extinct. It took two years for the agency to finalize its proposed ruling, but in October 2023 the controversy was settled. The agency ruled as extinct 21 of the 23 species it had proposed. Declared extinct were
Bachman's warbler, which had been native to
Florida and
South Carolina, along with nine tropical birds (8 in
Hawaii and 1 in
Guam). Hope still remained for one bird, the
Ivory-billed woodpecker. The only other species that remained listed as endangered was a Hawaiian plant in the mint family. Hope for recovery thus continued for the Hawaiian variety of
Phyllostegia glabra "due to new surveys identifying new, potentially suitable habitats for the species." Another controversy has been ongoing for more than three decades. Some have argued that the recovery of imperiled flesh-eating birds (notably, the
bald eagle,
brown pelican, and
peregrine falcon) should be attributed to the 1972 ban of the pesticide
DDT by the
EPA, rather than the Endangered Species Act. Supporters of the Act argue that listing these species as endangered led to additional actions that were also crucial for species recovery (i.e., captive breeding, habitat protection, and protection from disturbance). s imperiled in the eastern USA Among the most difficult species to protect are
mussels because they depend on adequate amounts of clean and flowing freshwater. Home to approximately 300 mussel species, the eastern region of the USA is the center of global diversity for these freshwater
molluscs. However, 65 percent of them are threatened or endangered. The 1988 Congressional amendments to the Act included a new section, Section 18, to aid effectiveness evaluations by having each of the two implementing agencies periodically report cumulative federal funding (and, to some degree, state funding) on a species-by-species basis. As of 2026, the agency webpage titled "Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures Reports" lists and links annual reports from fiscal year 1989 through 2020, but for no later years. A synthesis report to Congress for fiscal years 2017 through 2020 is also available and provides these statistics: "Of the 1,388 status reviews completed, 93 percent (1,294) recommend no change in status for the species, 3 percent (40) recommend reclassifying from endangered to threatened, 3 percent (38) recommend delisting (22 due to extinction, 13 due to recovery, and 3 due to error), 1 percent (13) recommend reclassifying from threatened to endangered, and less than 1 percent (2) recommend a revision to the listed entity."
Recovery and delistings are rare The above section on "effectiveness" of the Act is examined here as to why it is that recovery, and thus delistings, are rare. returning to the ocean after laying eggs in sand pits it had dug in the upper beach|upright=1.00 A widely used statistic supporting effectiveness of the Act is that 99 percent of listed species have not gone extinct. In 2012 the
Center for Biological Diversity issued a report that surveyed a sample of 110 listed species and concluded that 90 percent of them were recovering "at the rate specified by their federal recovery plan." is still listed as endangered under the ESA. Full recovery may thus be slow, but substantial progress is evidenced when a species is
downlisted from endangered to threatened. For example,
National Marine Fisheries Service lists eight species (or populations of a species) as among the most at risk of extinction in the near future. These animals are the
Atlantic salmon; the Central California Coast
coho salmon; the Cook Inlet
beluga whale; the
Hawaiian monk seal; the Pacific
leatherback sea turtle; the Sacramento River winter-run
chinook salmon; the southern resident population of
killer whale; and the
white abalone. Human activities are presented as the primary cause of extinction threats for all these species. While the two implementing agencies have a combined record of changing species status from threatened to endangered on nine occasions, the number of status improvements from endangered to threatened is greater. On the opposing side of the spectrum, a foundation associated with the Western Caucus of U.S. senators and representatives issued a 116-page report in 2023 that points to data and statements made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the past half-century that can be interpreted as disputing proclamations of success.
Delisting in 2008 of the
Virginia northern flying squirrel is one of the examples officially counted as a "recovery." However, the basis for delisting proved to be a combination of a wrongly inferred subspecies taxonomic status and a faulty initial population count that neglected to search for the animal across the border into West Virginia. Controversy also develops when the science used to support a delisting decision differs from the numerical population thresholds included in the
species recovery plan. For example, the listing of the
California sea otter has been controversial with fishermen who contend that the sea otter's expansion from Monterey into Southern California waters has resulted in a dramatic reduction in
sea urchin,
abalone, and other commercially valuable species. These impacts led certain fishermen groups to petition the government to delist the sea otter. The petition argued that delisting is appropriate because, among other reasons, the sea otter's population goals, as contained in the most recent recovery plan, have been met. The government, however, denied the petition. A 2012 court case upheld the agency decision, ruling that published recovery criteria are not legally binding for later delisting decisions. More fundamentally, while the statute requires the agencies to develop recovery plans, "the ESA imposes no duty to implement recovery plans or to ensure the recovery of listed species." A review paper published in 2025 offers that, back when the Act was written, "it was likely unanticipated that many endangered species would have no hope of recovery to the point of not requiring ongoing management attention." Besides alleged funding inadequacies, Impediments to generating boundary-spanning
conservation science include "a reward structure in science that promotes publication and grant income rather than engaging with conservation practitioners." There are two reasons why scientists themselves may abstain from recommending actions. One is fear that making such recommendations may compromise their status as objective researchers whose conclusions can be trusted. A second is fear that a recommended action that is undertaken but then fails may injure their reputation. These fears may be heightened when recommendations pertain to a species for which controversy has developed or one whose population has declined so drastically that any manipulation of the species or its habitat may later be denounced as contributing to its further decline or extinction. Species recovery is slowed by inherent complexities. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service maintains a webpage that sets forth the
stages of the recovery process. Included is a linked list of 7 named "services" that the agency offers to assist collaborative parties in accomplishing beneficial actions themselves: • recovery challenge grants • recovery land acquisition grants • 3-200-59: Scientific Purposes, Enhancement of Propagation, or Survival Permits (Recovery Permits) • Conservation Benefit Agreements • 3-200-54: Enhancement of Survival Permits Associated with Conservation Benefit Agreements • Habitat Conservation Plans • 3-200-56: Incidental Take Permits Associated with a Habitat Conservation Plan|upright=1.25 report in 2023 in behalf of the endangered
Karner blue butterfly included a recommendation to "encourage entities (city, state, county, tribal, federal) with sandy soils north of the current range to plant
Lupinus perennis and nectar plants" in anticipation of future authorization for "
managed relocation" of populations threatened by heat and drought in southerly portions of the butterfly's historical range. While there are legal limitations on what citizens and other stakeholders can do directly for listed animal species, the field is wide open for obtaining horticulturally produced seeds and specimens of listed plants and then conducting plantings on their own. (and since 2018 also from their own plantings in
Ohio) to engage in a form of
assisted migration poleward of this climate-endangered plant. Supportive research and actions were undertaken by the conservation organization
American Forests as well as a new organization specific to the tree: the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation. Other collaborators include research scientists within the
U.S. Forest Service, geneticists at the
University of California, Davis, and the
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The
U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the
National Park Service were also involved in consultation prior to listing by the agency in charge of endangered species: the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Controversy is also apparent, though rare, when stakeholders entail activists who regard the "political-economic regime" not as the source of solutions but as "the root cause of biodiversity loss." In such instances
guerrilla rewilding of rare species has been known to occur.
Collaborative planning on nonfederal lands The 1982 amendments to Section 10 of the Act authorized collaborative engagement of the implementing agencies with landowners in producing
Habitat Conservation Plans. Such a plan is a required part of an application for an
Incidental Take Permit, issued under the Act to private and other nonfederal entities undertaking projects that might result in harm to a listed species. The intent is to deter controversy by building into the plan practices for minimizing harm to listed species and their core habitat needs (including seasonal peaks in use). A validated plan then absolves the landowner (or developer) from harms that may incidentally occur to the species, when following the plan. Securing landowner pledges of habitat enhancement measures during the planning process can serve to defuse opposition from the public and other stakeholders. in its Atlantic beach nesting habitat|upright=.55 Plan preparation is generally initiated and produced by a nonfederal entity: private landowner, state government, local government. As of 2021, more than 700 habitat conservation plans were in force for listed species. A leading example is the plan produced by the state of
Massachusetts in 2016 to reduce conflicts between a type of beach-nesting shorebird,
piping plover, and recreational beach users along the
Atlantic Ocean. Such plans also apply to the
red-cockaded woodpecker of forests in the southeastern states. Summing up the practical difficulties in a 2023 report on the Act,
Defenders of Wildlife pointed to underfunding as a continuing problem and that the agencies "lack adequate resources to develop, approve, and monitor these plans, and there are significant data gaps in how many of these plans are performing." An example of a CBA that was approved in 2025 was initiated by a minerals corporation with lands in southeastern
Arizona. The voluntary agreement benefits three endangered fish species (
spikedace,
loach minnow, and
Gila chub) and one threatened snake (
narrow-headed garter snake). The agreement will remain in effect for 50 years.
Petitions awaiting listing decisions A 2019 report found that the Fish and Wildlife Service faced a backlog of more than 500 species that have been determined to potentially warrant protection. A 2022 report pointed to severe population declines while species await listing decisions as a major problem impeding eventual recovery success. The decision to list or defer listing of a petitioned species is supposed to take no more than 2 years after a petition is filed. An analysis published in 2016 by the
Ecological Society of America found that approximately 50 species may have gone extinct while awaiting a listing decision. However, it was not until 2023 that the FWS officially declared this catfish as extinct. The list aggregates the proposed species into broad taxonomic types. Counting only the domestic (not the foreign) species on the list, there are: 5 amphibians, 3 birds, 13 freshwater clams, 3 crustaceans (crayfish), 8 fishes, 3 flowering plants, 7 insects, 2 mammals (1 rat and 1 bat), 12 reptiles, and 2 snails. From the beginning, implementation of the ESA of 1973 is based on "the best available science," beginning with
taxonomic classification. The petitioned group of organisms must first qualify as a bona fide
species or
subspecies. Isolated populations or varieties of otherwise common species may be considered for listing only if they are
vertebrates. Given the
evolutionary processes by which species arise and continue to change, there is no consensus that could provide a singular definition or standard for the agency to use. Classification is therefore determined on a case-by-case basis and generally secured by publication in an academic journal — which itself is vulnerable to
publish-or-perish motivations that can lead to what is called
taxonomic inflation. Overturn of the
Chevron deference by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024 may have amplified classification as grounds for litigation by opponents of endangered species listings. (left) is smooth compared to that of the more populous
Rusby's globemallow. | upright=1.25 Classification boundaries that are imprecise because of geographically remote or interpenetrating
hybrid populations pose additional challenges for agency staff attempting to ground listing decisions on "best available science." The problem compounded when the red wolf population managed on a coastal island became populous enough for geographic range experimentation. Individuals released onto the mainland routinely interbred with the far more populous coyotes, and
genetic swamping ensued.
westslope cutthroat trout, the
wood bison, and the
eastern massasauga rattlesnake. A 2014 publication was cited that "found approximately one-third of interspecific crosses between 30
Sphaeralcea taxa successful." Only once has hybridization been an intentional recovery action, known as
genetic rescue. This was applied to the
Florida panther when
cougars from Texas were intentionally released into its habitat to counter ongoing decline owing to
inbreeding depression. In 1978, Congress
amended the law to make critical habitat designation a mandatory requirement for all threatened and endangered species. To offset some of the consequences of this amendment, and to improve flexibility in the ESA's application, the 1978 amendments also added
economics into the process of determining such designation. According to a 2025 review paper, a range of
environmental social sciences have since contributed significant "potential for finding solutions" beyond the scope of what the biological sciences could alone offer. Not all recovery plans, however, specify critical habitat. Setting aside this requirement is authorized if the agency head determines that its designation would not be "prudent."|upright=1.50 Most provisions of the ESA revolve around preventing extinction. Critical habitat is one of the few that focus on recovery. A 2005 paper published in the journal
BioScience concluded that species afforded critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering than are species without critical habitat. Another controversy arises from the Act specifying that critical habitat designation is required to contain "all areas essential to the conservation" of the imperiled species, and may include private as well as public lands. The Fish and Wildlife Service has a policy limiting designation to lands and waters within the U.S., and both federal agencies may exclude essential areas if they determine that economic or other costs exceed the benefit. The ESA, however, is mute about how such costs and benefits are to be determined, The Act's specification of the timing of critical habitat designations has also become problematic. The ESA requires that critical habitat be designated at the time of or within one year of a species being placed on the endangered list. In practice, most designations occur several years after listing. The dusky gopher frog decision at the level of U.S. Supreme Court thus became a key species-specific example of the judiciary setting geographic boundaries on the agency's ability to designate critical habitat happened in 2018. The court ruled as invalid the critical habitat designation of a segment of private timberlands in
Louisiana in part because the endangered frog had been extirpated from that state for half a century, currently inhabiting only
Mississippi. Equally, it was clear that suitable pond "habitat" for the frog would require a degree of ecological restoration to be performed on the private land. A 2020 law review article concluded that critical habitat designations were still far underutilized. A delay in the timing of designations (after listing and thus concurrent with the development of a species recovery plan) would automatically provide "significant amounts of information absent from the species listing stage."
Climate change as an endangerment cause In 2005 the
Center for Biological Diversity petitioned to list the
polar bear as threatened, with critical habitat in Alaska.
Climate change was among the identified threats. In 2023 another large carnivore, the
wolverine, was added to the list "due primarily to the ongoing and increasing impacts of climate change and associated habitat degradation and fragmentation." The word "climate" appears 135 times in its official posting, which entails 46 pages in the
Federal Register. Rising temperatures and declining snowpack in the contiguous United States (not Alaska) had made cave denning difficult for the remaining populations in the
Cascade Range and
Rocky Mountains. The following year, the southernmost
subspecies of an alpine and tundra bird, the
white-tailed ptarmigan, along the west coast of North America was listed as threatened in Washington state because: "The Service has determined that the loss and degradation of its habitat resulting from climate change will endanger the bird in the foreseeable future." Because distinct populations of
vertebrate species and subspecies can be listed, nine river systems where
chinook salmon spawn are now protected under the Act (see image at right). Salmon spawn in freshwater but mature in marine waters, so both the
Fish and Wildlife Service and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a regulatory change in 1984 made prospective translocations beyond the native range more difficult to justify. experimental population authorized in 2001. are dispersed by ants, hindering its ability to track climate change. Two
Congressional Research Service reports focus on experimental populations. One summarizes its early use for reasons other than climate change, and the other focuses on its past and present use in helping the
gray wolf expand much farther into what had been its vast historical range. As of February 2025, 64 species (including several populations of a single species) were listed as already having authorizations to implement "experimental populations." All can proceed on a "non-essential" basis (meaning, losses are expected but will not threaten the integrity of the
gene pool). and the
Whooping crane. In June 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a proposed rule in the
Federal Register that would "revise section 10(j) regulations under the ESA to better facilitate recovery by allowing for the introduction of listed species to suitable habitats outside of their historical ranges. The proposed change would help improve the conservation and recovery of imperiled ESA-listed species in the coming decades, as growing impacts from
climate change and
invasive species cause habitats within their historical ranges to shift and become unsuitable." The comment period ended August 2022, with more than 500 comments posted online by supporters and opponents. As reported on the news page of
Audubon, adoption of the proposed regulatory change would authorize, for the first time, use of a controversial climate adaptation tool:
assisted migration.
The U.S. Department of Interior on June 30, 2023, announced its decision to modify the section 10(j) "experimental populations" rule generally as proposed a year earlier. The press release summarized the reason for the change as, "At the time the original 10(j) regulations were established, the potential impact of climate change on species and their habitats was not fully realized, yet in the decades since have become even more dramatic. These revisions will help prevent extinctions and support the recovery of imperiled species by allowing the Service and our partners to implement proactive, conservation-based species introductions to reduce the impacts of climate change and other threats such as invasive species." |upright=.75 Video #38 Pre-existing requirements pertaining to experimental populations in the
Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) still apply. Plans to use "Subpart H: experimental populations" for the purpose of
climate change adaptation thus require public notice and ultimate placement in the "Species-specific rules" subpart of the CFR regulations of the precise geographic and other details. Six months after this
climate adaptation regulation for listed species was published, the
National Park Service issued a 154-page report on recommendations for halting the decline of the endangered
Karner blue butterfly in its small and scattered populations across the northeastern states. Among the recommendations were "
managed relocation" of populations from the southern parts of its range into northward habitats with suitable conditions and supportive plants. The report justified the managed relocation action by noting that stakeholders and managers "are growing more supportive of novel science-based interventions to save rare species from climate change–driven extirpation." urged the new administration to utilize the experimental populations regulation to recruit more citizens to help endangered plants. The group had been using their own resources to do this for a critically endangered tree since 2008. they had been experimentally planting
Florida torreya,
Torreya taxifolia, hundreds of miles northward of its native range (a
glacial refugium) in Florida. As reported in
Nature Climate Change journal in 2008, At least on a limited scale, it seems that assisted migration is already happening. One of the most well-known cases is the transfer of
Torreya taxifolia, a Florida conifer with a tiny range that many believe survives there only due to historical accident. In a desperate bid to protect their beloved species, a group of botanists and environmentalists who call themselves the
Torreya Guardians have established a volunteer seed-planting campaign to move it northwards. On 3 August, they planted 31
Torreya taxifolia seedlings in North Carolina.
When delisting leads to recreational hunting In October 2020, the
Gray wolf (but not the
Mexican wolf) was delisted by the federal government in all states. Press releases by the FWS explained the scope and rationale of that action. Several lawsuits challenging the delisting were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A press release issued by one of the plaintiffs,
Defenders of Wildlife, explained, "This decision made wolves vulnerable to hunting, trapping, poisoning, and other lethal controls. Without federal protections, state laws threaten to undo decades of public restoration efforts and prevent the goal of true, nationwide wolf recovery." The advocacy group later posted a history of the status and protection of the gray wolf in the lower 48 states, beginning with its endangered listing in 1978, followed by the first reintroduction of the species into
Yellowstone National Park in 1993. November 2020, the
Congressional Research Service published a 46-page report on the gray wolf listing history, subtitled, "
A Case Study in Listing and Delisting Challenges." A summary paragraph states the challenges: From initial listing to recovery and reintroduction efforts to more recent attempts to delist the gray wolf, FWS has addressed such issues as uncertainties in gray wolf taxonomy, ambiguous statutory terms (e.g., "foreseeable future" and "significant portion of its range"), and the adequacy of state management plans. Stakeholders have questioned FWS's choices in comments to the proposed rules and have challenged many of the agency's gray wolf rules in court. Many of the legal challenges to FWS's delisting rules have succeeded, with courts vacating the rules and remanding them to the agency. The history of FWS's regulation of the gray wolf under the ESA and related litigation serve as a useful case study in how regulatory and legal challenges have shaped FWS's interpretation and application of key terms when listing and delisting species under the Act. In February 2022, the district court vacated and remanded the 2020 delisting rule. That decision reinstated the federal protections that were in place prior to the effective date of the 2020 delisting rule. Gray wolves were thus once again listed as threatened in
Minnesota and endangered in all or portions of 44 U.S. states and Mexico. The regional exception where delisting was maintained spanned the 5 states where the
Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population had established. The agency once again went to work on updating the
Species Status Assessment Report, It simultaneously announced the beginning of a new process for what it called a "National Recovery Plan" and explained: Debate over the management of wolves has included more than two decades of legislation, litigation and rulemaking. Wolf recovery to date has been construed around specific legal questions or science-driven exercises about predicted wolf population status. Courts have invalidated five out of six rules finalized by the Service on gray wolf status, citing at least in part a failure to consider how delisting any particular population of gray wolves affects their status and recovery nationwide. Meanwhile the
Nez Perce Tribe has been cooperating with federal authorities in
wolf reintroduction on its own tribal lands in
Idaho since the 1990s. The tribe maintains a webpage titled, "
The Homecoming of Hîmiin: A Long Time Coming," and thus expresses a welcoming attitude unusual in the
Rocky Mountain states: Ultimately, our efforts to restore the gray wolf to the Nez Perce homeland and his rightful place in Nez Perce culture have been a resounding success. Today, many hundreds of wolves live within the Tribe's homeland in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. As the management of wolves shifts to state agencies, the Tribe continues to track population trends and engage regional partners to ensure the continued health and prosperity of hîmiin in our homeland. The Nez Perce Tribe is not unusual in its respectful relationship to the wolf. The 398-page federal report does not, however, include any mention of
traditional ecological knowledge pertaining to the bear. As of July 2025 all grizzly populations are still listed as "threatened." It is therefore "illegal to harm, harass or kill these bears, except in cases of self-defense or the defense of others." The FWS explains that "Grizzly bear conservation is complex and only made possible through a variety of partnerships with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, state wildlife agencies, Native American Tribes, federal agencies, universities and other organizations."
Reversals in policy track presidential elections In October 2019, at the urging of the
Pacific Legal Foundation and the Property and Environment Research Center, the USFWS and the NMFS under
President Donald Trump changed the §4(d) rule to treat "threatened" and "critically endangered" species differently (in accordance with the statutory default, which does not prohibit take of threatened species absent a special rule justifying extension of this prohibition). This action legalized and encouraged private recovery initiatives on habitats for species that are merely "threatened." Environmental opponents criticized the revision as "crashing like a bulldozer" through the act and "tipping the scales way in favor of industry." The California legislature passed a bill to raise California regulations to thwart the Trump administration changes; it was vetoed by
Governor Newsom. In January 2020, the
House Natural Resources Committee reported similar legislation. In June 2021, the
Biden administration said it was reviewing the Trump era Endangered Species Act regulations and planned to reverse or revise some of the changes, in particular those relating to critical habitat regulations. A critic commented, "It seems to be one of those rules/regulations/things going on in Washington D.C. that like to flip-flop with each administration while seeing no actual finality." A December 2024 news article puts the history of presidential election impacts on ESA administration in the context of a second term for
Donald Trump. This regulatory flip-flop was not without precedent. A 2008 law review article reports, "
President Obama signaled his desire to reverse the last minute
Bush administration rule change that became effective on January 15, 2009, by signing a memorandum directing that the Departments of the Interior and Commerce review the regulations impacting the consultation process, and that the agencies resume the traditional consultation process during the review." In March 2025 several conservation groups warned that numerous species currently listed could be driven to extinction as a result of the
second Trump administration's mass firings of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff, coupled with reconvening of what has come to be called the "God Squad." This cabinet-level committee was authorized in the 1978 amendments to the Act in order to set aside the usual endangered species protocols for fast-tracking the permitting of development projects of national significance. As described in
The Guardian: The squad, officially called the Endangered Species Committee, includes seven federal agency leaders, who, in the rare instances in which a federal action of significant public or economic interest comes into irresolvable conflict with the ESA, each vote on whether the project's benefits outweigh the protected species' wellbeing. If five of the seven votes are in favor of a project proceeding, it moves forward, which could drive species to extinction. The
greater-sage grouse is one declining species for which listing petitions have generated policy responses that flip-flop with presidential (and sometimes Congressional) election results. Because the bird's
sagebrush habitat ranges through ten western states and because much of that habitat is within the jurisdiction of the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the affected states have advocated for collaborative decision-making as a more malleable alternative to federal designation of the grouse as a threatened species. The first petition was submitted during the George W. Bush administration, with policy deliberations carrying into President Obama's time in office during which a court order forced a decision on whether or not to list the bird as threatened. "Warranted but precluded" was the decision in 2010 that effectively pushed decision-making into an undetermined future time. In April 2014, the Sage-Grouse and Endangered Species Conservation and Protection Act (H.R.4419) was passed in the
U.S. House of Representatives. This statute prohibited the federal government from listing sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act for 10 years, so long as states prepared and carried out plans to protect the species within their borders. A collaborative plan (without formal listing) was finally signed in 2015. It carried through the first Trump administration and into the Biden administration. A few days after the 2024 election results determined that Donald J. Trump would resume the presidency, the Biden administration offered an updated draft plan. Mandatory funding for the law therefore expired in 1992. A 2009 law review paper attributed increasing polarization in the "reauthorization debates" partly to the
news media having incentives to attract readership by featuring the most dramatic quotations from "divergent narratives" that magnify the divide. As well, interest groups on both sides "shared a perception that the ESA was broken." Nonetheless, Congressional interventions in executive branch implementation are regularly achieved via "
riders" inserted into a multi-topic
omnibus bill (notably, passage of the annual budget bill). For example, as of February 2025, the
Defenders of Wildlife has a webpage titled, "The 118th Congress: Playing Politics with Extinction: 115 Attacks on the ESA." (The
118th Congress convened during the final two years of
Joe Biden's presidency.) The group lists, excerpts, and expresses their views on 93 House and 22 Senate bills, sections of bills, amendments, and resolutions. Very few of these moved out of any committee. Most were attempts to block funding, overrule listing or delisting decisions, or alter regulations for just one species at a time. The focal species of failed attempts for inclusion in the March 2024 funding bill included:
northern long-eared bat,
gray wolf,
grizzly bear,
North Atlantic right whale,
Rice's whale,
lesser prairie-chicken,
Texas kangaroo rat,
Dunes sagebrush lizard, and two
mussel species in the
Rio Grande watershed. In contrast, "the long-standing rider preventing ESA listing of the
greater sage-grouse and the Columbia Basin distinct population segment was retained in the final bill." As to the implementation of existing recovery plans, there is no requirement that federal agencies (or any other institution) implement any of the actions specified in those plans. "species status assessment" was published in 2019. In 1988, the 1973 Act was amended in several ways, including the creation of a new section. Titled, "
Annual Cost Analysis by the Fish and Wildlife Service," Section 18 requires that the
Secretary of the Interior "shall submit to the Congress an annual report covering the preceding fiscal year." The report is to entail a list "on a species by species basis of all reasonably identifiable" expenditures made by the federal government and additionally by states. As of January 2025, annual reports beginning in 1989 through 2020 are accessible in pdf format via this page on the agency's website: "
Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures Reports." The 2020 fiscal year report entailed many pages of tabulations. One such list organized the species from the greatest to the least annual expenditures.
Chinook Salmon of Puget Sound was at the top of the list: $62 million. All but one of the 26 highest ranked species are fish that live, at least part of their lives, in freshwater habitats. The one exception is also aquatic, but confined to marine waters and thus administered by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is the
North Atlantic right whale. One has to scroll down to the 159th highest annual expenditure in order to find the first plant. It is a
keystone species of coastal waters that provides expansive
ecosystem services:
seagrass. Immediately following the seagrass is
American crocodile and
California condor. All three are just under $600 thousand apiece. Land acquisition expenditures, which may primarily come from the federal
Land and Water Conservation Fund, posted a short analysis of same. For FY 2024, there is also a lengthy report itemizing costs and requests for more than a dozen programs internal to FWS, but the endangered species program is not delineated among those programs, and there is no species-by-species accounting as had been the norm through 2020.
Delisting is not always defunding The ESA of 1973 is implemented in ways such that each recovery plan includes a threshold population number at which a particular species could be regarded as "recovered." However, there is also a statutory requirement that delisting occurs only if the population threshold can be expected to maintain over "the foreseeable future," given the existing laws and regulations operative outside of the Endangered Species Act. fishing A notable example happened in 1994 when the eastern North Pacific population of
gray whale (which ranges along the west coast of North America) was delisted. Its population had reached the recovery threshold, and henceforth the
Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 was regarded as sufficient for maintaining that recovery into the future. and the
Bald Eagle Protection Act had made killing of the bird illegal since 1940. What about species for whom active management had played a large role in bringing population numbers up to the recovery threshold, yet the threats that had been repelled by such management showed no prospect of going away? In 2005 these kinds of species were labelled as
conservation-reliant species. The statutory requirement for ensuring ongoing management by other institutions was achieved by securing management agreements with state governmental and also private entities (such as conservation organizations and
conservation land trusts). Designated as "endangered" in 1972 via the 1969 version of the endangered species statute, the warbler had dipped in population as low as 200 breeding pairs. Worse, prime habitat is naturally ephemeral. for the lower branches to fully camouflage their chosen sites. Periodic fires are their natural ally. But civilization cannot tolerate fires running rampant. At the time of delisting (2019), team members were drawn from three federal agencies (
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
U.S. Forest Service, and
U.S. Department of Agriculture), from the state natural resources departments of
Michigan and
Wisconsin, from the
Canadian Wildlife Service, and from two established conservation organizations (
The Nature Conservancy and Huron Pines). No expenditures were attributed to the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2020, but a total of $27,000 federal dollars were expended by other agencies, mostly the U.S. Forest Service (on whose lands active management continues). The devolution of endangered species protection from the primacy of federal government powers and obligations back to the states via cooperative agreements (as in the case of Kirtland's warbler in 2019) or via preemptive state action (as in the case of California's species of
Joshua Tree in 2023)
Chronological list of species controversies |upright=.75 In 1978, a small species of fish in the southeastern USA was listed as endangered. A conflict arose because a dam was already under construction within its native range and was scientifically deemed as damaging to its necessary habitat. What came to be known as the
snail darter controversy gained national attention. Subsequently, more populations of the species were discovered in rivers other than the
Little Tennessee River where the dam was constructed, and in 2022 the species was removed from the federal endangered list. Nonetheless, the fact that the Endangered Species Act effectively halted major construction underway in behalf of a small species of fish put an end to the wide political support that had accompanied passage of the Act. By the early 1990s, the captive breeding effort was successful enough to begin returning some of the progeny to the wild—including the
Grand Canyon from which this
carrion-feeding bird had been missing for at least several centuries. In 2001 the first wild nesting was recorded in the Grand Canyon. As of 2022, the species had a wild population of 350 individuals and a captive population of 214. In 1987 an extirpated eastern relative of the
gray wolf was reintroduced into
North Carolina following more than a decade of captive breeding. Controversy accelerated when the state wildlife agency liberalized hunting regulations for
coyotes. Because the endangered
red wolf resembles its coyote relative far more than the larger gray wolf does, the number of mistaken shootings of the endangered species began to seriously impact the population. As well, detractors of red wolf protection pointed to the genetic deterioration of later generations of red wolves in the wild, as they easily interbreed with coyotes. Preventing human destruction of habitat did not, however, result in species recovery. Natural immigration of a bigger and more aggressive owl species (the
barred owl) that was formerly native only to the eastern states became a major cause of continuing population decline of the spotted owl. The government's decision to employ sharpshooters to cull the barred owl population presents a challenging ethical issue within conservation thinking. Another ESA controversy erupted in the 1990s when the
gray wolf (listed as endangered in the Lower 48 states in 1974) and the
Mexican wolf (listed as endangered in 1976) were reintroduced into core areas of their former native ranges. Because wolves are so wide-ranging and can be expected to occasionally prey upon livestock that ranchers legally graze on federal (even wilderness) lands, announcements of intents to restore these predators to particular federal lands in the Rocky Mountain states generated conflicting views at the outset. Ever after, state authority to manage roaming wolves (and authorize takings and hunts) has been controversial, as well.
Climate change became a legally validated extinction risk when the
polar bear secured a listing as "threatened" in 2010. Following the required environmental review and agency consultation, the federal government issued a permit in October 2024 that authorized the lithium mining project to move forward. entails 96 pages. In 2023, the largest and fiercest member of the
weasel family, the
wolverine, was listed as threatened for habitat outside of Alaska. The listing was controversial because
climate change was invoked as a primary cause of the "rising temperatures and declining snowpack" making successful snow cave denning difficult for the remaining populations in the
Cascade Range and
Rocky Mountains. The 2023 listing followed a decade of contentious proceedings, starting with the Fish and Wildlife Service itself proposing in 2013 that the wolverine be listed as threatened, then withdrawing its listing proposal the following year. This prompted a successful district court challenge in
Montana by
Defenders of Wildlife, based on the agency having "unlawfully ignored the best available science" regarding the impacts of climate change on declining snowpack. On remand, the agency in 2018 once again decided a listing was "unwarranted," and again conservation groups sued in court. As of early 2025, the 2023 official listing as "threatened" has not been challenged. In 2024, climate change was again stated as cause for a listing. The Mount Rainier white-tailed ptarmigan was listed as threatened because: "The Service has determined that the loss and degradation of its habitat resulting from climate change will endanger the bird in the foreseeable future." == Section-by-Section Summaries of the 1973 Act ==