The Feds Don’t Have A Plan For Hundreds Of Species It’s Supposed To Be Protecting

The federal government has yet to craft a recovery plan and set standards for delisting on nearly a third of species protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead testified Tuesday.

Mead sat before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works during a hearing discussing amendments to the ESA. The draft legislation would be the first “substantive” updates to the law in three decades if it is passed.

Mead, a Republican, has “witnessed some of the ESA’s greatest failings” firsthand from his position in Wyoming.

“It took five lawsuits and fifteen years to delist a recovered gray wolf population in Wyoming. Grizzly bears are embroiled in litigation for the second time,” Mead testified. “Canada Lynx were listed more than 18 years ago and still have no discernable path to recovery. Nearly 30 percent of all listed species have no recovery plan, and litigation dictates U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) priorities and workload.”

More than 1,600 species native to the U.S. have been listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA. Of those species, roughly two percent have been taken off the list as recovered, extinct or erroneously listed because flawed data was used to justify the listing decision.

The ESA has saved 99 percent of the listed species from extinction, supporters of the current law argue.

“We should not forget that the ESA as written has a 99 percent success rate at preventing the extinction of listed species and that 90 percent of species with recovery plans are on track to meet their goals on schedule,” Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Matthew Strickler testified at Tuesday’s hearing.

The proposed legislation gives state and local research greater weight in listing decisions but leaves the final decision in the hands of the secretary of the interior. The legislation also prevents lawsuits seeking to overturn a delisting decision for five years after a species is officially removed from the list.

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