Recognizing the need to protect imperiled species from the human impacts on natural ecosystems, the United States Congress passed the Endangered Species Act on 28 December 1973. The law enables the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to list a particular species as “endangered” and implement recovery plans in hopes that this will someday make it possible to take the species off the list. Once a species is listed, actions that would negatively affect it, such as hunting, are forbidden. The Endangered Species Act has triggered controversies as it calls into question private landowning rights, telling people what they can and cannot do on their land. Apart from that, the law stands for unquestionable success stories, preventing species from total extinction. Unfortunately, few species have managed to repopulate enough to be removed from the list.
Contributed by Brandon Farnsworth
Course: Modern Global Environmental History
Instructor: Dr. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
University of Wisconsin–Madison, US
- Paul Robbins, John Hintz, and Sarah A. Moore. Environment and Society: A Critical Introduction (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 71.
- Stokstad, Erik, “What’s Wrong with the Endangered Species Act?” Science (2005): 2150-52.