Endangered Species Recovery

The first step to protecting species on the brink of extinction is to protect—or list—them under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  Research has shown, however, that the next important step is providing them with formal critical habitat designation: species with critical habitat are twice as likely to recover as those without.  Other important tools for recovery include providing species with adequate recovery plans, preventing harmful human activities, and restoring endangered wildlife and plants to areas from which they are missing.  

WildEarth Guardians works to ensure that endangered plants and animals are protected under the ESA and then afforded the full protections of this law in order to ensure their recovery.  We take the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court for failure to designate critical habitat.  We challenge the Service’s failure to develop adequate recovery plans.  We push federal agencies – especially federal land managers such as the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management – to use their full authority to both prevent harmful actions and take positive steps toward recovery for species that occupy or have suitable habitat on federal lands.  

While promoting species reintroduction, we are careful to push for reintroduction designs that keep intact the full habitat protections the ESA provides, on both public and private lands.  When WildEarth Guardians pursues endangered species recovery, we remember that endangered species are tied to the ecosystems on which they depend.  We know that the northern aplomado falcon depends on intact Chihuahuan Desert grasslands in order to fully recover.  We challenge reintroduction proposals that disconnect the falcon from its desert ecosystem.  We also push for reforms in the black-footed ferret recovery program, which has failed to recognize that in order to bring back the ferret, we need to protect and restore its lifeline, the prairie dog.  WildEarth Guardians undertakes fierce litigation but also advocates grazing permit buyouts as a long-term solution to providing conflict-free areas for grey wolves to roam the West once again.

Critical habitat is indeed critical, and we have a long history of advocating for critical habitat designation for listed species.  Examples include the Pecos sunflower, which has dwindled due to habitat assaults on its fragile desert wetlands habitat.  The Devils River minnow and Chiricahua leopard frog also depend on well-watered and intact habitats in order to come back from the brink.  For these species and many others in the west, climate change predictions of drought, decreased snowpack, and erratic precipitation increase the importance of protecting them from additional threats that can worsen the impact of climate change.  That means granting them the highest level of habitat protection.

WildEarth Guardians’ Endangered Species Recovery campaign understands that listing species under the ESA is a crucial first step toward protecting them from extinction.  But it is just that – a first step – which must be followed up with sustained efforts to ensure our native plants and animals are ushered toward recovery.