A U.S. law aims to protect plants and animals from going extinct. Has it worked? Read the latest AP WhatCanBeSaved story:
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — In the unlikely setting of the world’s most populated military installation, amid all the regimented chaos, you’ll find the Endangered Species Act at work.
In some ways, the tiny butterfly is an ideal example of the more than 1,600 U.S. species that have been protected by the Endangered Species Act. Alive, but not exactly doing that well. “Species will remain in the Endangered Species Act hospital indefinitely. And I don’t think that’s a failure of the Endangered Species Act itself,” Li says.The Endangered Species Act “is the safety net of last resort,” says Gary Frazer, assistant director of ecological services at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the law. “We list species after all other vehicles of protection have failed.
The law caused all sorts of environmental showdowns in the 1970s and 1980s — most notoriously, the fight over the construction of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee, which threatened the tiny snail darter fish. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the fish, but Congress exempted the dam from the law.
The small woodpecker is a member of the original class of 1967. It may soon fly off the endangered list or, more likely, graduate to the less-protected threatened list. In the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to save the woodpecker and their trees set off a backlash among landowners who worried about interference on their private property.
By the 1980s, the red cockaded woodpecker population was below 10,000 nationwide, says Virginia Tech scientist Jeff Walters, a woodpecker expert. Biologists built boxes to serve as nests, attaching them to trees. The woodpeckers weren’t interested. Meanwhile, Army officials were convinced to start setting fires to burn away the scrub. Now about a third of the area burns every three years or so.
Over that period, more than $7 billion went to two species of salmon alone. Seven species, mostly fish, ate up more than half of the money expended under the act, according to the annual accounting figures.Nick Haddad — the world’s leading expert on the St. Francis Satyr, a Michigan State University biology professor and author of the book “The Last Butterflies” — got permission to go to the butterfly’s home, the artillery range.
The butterfly appears only twice a year for two weeks each time. When it does, Haddad rushes to Fort Bragg and joins a team of Army biologists to count the butterflies and improve their habitat. They install giant inflatable rubber bladders that mimic beaver dams; they produce the minor floods that the butterfly needs.
Among them: a change in the rules for species that are “threatened,” the classification just below endangered. Instead of mandating, in most cases, that they get the same protection as endangered species, the new rules allow for variations.
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What Can Be Saved?AP's in-depth series explored China’s plans to protect its natural resources with an ambitious national park system. Next week, go deep into the U.S. Endangered Species Act and examine the fate of some of the more than 1,600 species it protects.
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