Protecting Endangered Species: Do the Main Legislative Tools Work?

Abstract

It is critical to assess the effectiveness of the tools used to protect endangered species. The main tools enabled under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) to promote species recovery are funding, recovery plan development and critical habitat designation. Earlier studies sometimes found that statistically significant effects of these tools could be detected, but they have not answered the question of whether the effects were large enough to be biologically meaningful. Here, we ask: how much does the recovery status of ESA-listed species improve with the application of these tools? We used species' staus reports to Congress from 1988 to 2006 to quantify two measures of recovery for 1179 species. We related these to the amount of federal funding, years with a recovery plan, years with critical habitat designation, the amount of peer-reviewed scientific information, and time listed. We found that change in recovery status of listed species was, at best, only very weakly related to any of these tools. Recovery was positively related to the number of years listed, years with a recovery plan, and funding, however, these tools combined explain <13% of the variation in recovery status among species. Earlier studies that reported significant effects of these tools did not focus on effect sizes; however, they are in fact similarly small. One must conclude either that these tools are not very effective in promoting species' recovery, or (as we suspect) that species recovery data are so poor that it is impossible to tell whether the tools are effective or not. It is critically important to assess the effectiveness of tools used to promote species recovery; it is therefore also critically important to obtain population status data that are adequate to that task.

A review of on-ground recovery actions for threatened freshwater fish in Australia

“…Largescale reviews suggest that, on average, recovery actions are slowing or stabilising rather than reversing the decline of threatened species (e.g. Male and Bean 2005;Gibbs and Currie 2012), although there are notable exceptions. Where rapid recovery has occurred, it is usually for species with single or relatively easy to address threats (i.e.…”

“…The influence of some specific management actions (e.g. the identification of critical habitat) on recovery trajectory has been scrutinised but the results may be contradictory (Taylor et al 2005;Gibbs and Currie 2012) and the majority of management interventions have not been examined. For freshwater fish, there is a relatively common suite of management activities employed to recover threatened species, including stock enhancement with captive-bred individuals, translocation, habitat rehabilitation, legislative protection, remediation of barriers to fish passage, improved water-quality and flow management, and control of alien species (Cowx 2002;Helfman 2007;Lintermans 2013a).…”

“…Reviews of recovery programs are essential if recovery science, legislation and management are to improve and valuable resources are to be better directed (see Clark et al 2002;Taylor et al 2005;Goble et al 2006;Scott et al 2010;Gibbs and Currie 2012). However, such reviews are dependent on the quality and availability of relevant data and the method of analysis (Abbitt and Scott 2001;Crouse et al 2002;Gibbs and Currie 2012).…”

“…However, such reviews are dependent on the quality and availability of relevant data and the method of analysis (Abbitt and Scott 2001;Crouse et al 2002;Gibbs and Currie 2012). Although the outcomes of numerous individual recovery case studies are available, there are relatively few reviews of intervention classes or for specific threatened animal groups.…”

Species conservation in the Pacific Islands: taking effective steps forward

“…It includes new information related to known species as well as collations on species groups that are not well documented but are highly threatened. Such efforts are significant as the recovery of endangered species via conservation has been shown, in some countries at least, to be directly related to project funding, the number of years listed as endangered and the number of years in which a recovery plan has been in place (Gibbs and Currie 2012).…”