{"id":7780,"date":"2017-05-18T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/?p=7780"},"modified":"2025-06-10T17:07:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T21:07:01","slug":"what-weve-learned-from-50-years-of-wildlife-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/2017\/05\/18\/what-weve-learned-from-50-years-of-wildlife-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"What we’ve learned from 50 years of wildlife conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wildlife
Photo: \u00a9 Holger Ehlers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the first endangered species list was created 50 years ago, it started out with 78 animals. The grizzly bear and bald eagle were among American icons that made that first list.<\/p>\n

Today, it counts 1,400 animals and 900 plants \u2013 an expansion that reflects more petitions for listings over time, but also the fact that threats to habitats and ecosystems have become more widespread and complex.<\/p>\n

In the early days of the Endangered Species Act, we could more easily identify the threat and go straight to the source. When DDT was thinning egg shells, killing embryos and endangering multiple bird species,\u00a0we worked<\/a>\u00a0to curb applications of the harmful pesticide.\u00a0After a federal ban against DDT, the problem was solved.<\/p>\n

Today, threats are more likely to come from broad landscape changes that occur when growing populations push housing and commercial developments outward, energy development and large-scale farming fragment and encroach on habitats, and climate change-related droughts and wildfires degrade entire ecosystems.<\/p>\n

It means the Endangered Species Act, and adequately funded species recovery plans, are needed more than ever before \u2013 but also that we must invest in new conservation approaches that help us protect species before they become endangered in the first place.<\/p>\n50 years of wildlife conservation \u2013 and where we go from here, via @davidfesta <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

An airbnb for wildlife<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Wildlife
The imperiled greater sage-grouse avoided listing as an endangered species after Western landowners agreed on a plan to protect its habitat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three quarters of all land in the United States is privately held and, as such, it\u2019s an untapped reservoir of conservation potential.<\/p>\n

In the mid-1990s, my colleagues worked closely with farmers and ranchers to develop Safe Harbor agreements to tap into some of this potential. They gave landowners\u00a0incentives<\/a>\u00a0to protect wildlife in return for legal assurances they would be shielded from the burdens of a future listing.<\/p>\n

The idea became a national program that now encompasses 4 million acres. While a \u201cbig solution,\u201d however, it\u2019s not nearly large enough.<\/p>\n

So we worked with producers to develop the next innovation \u2013 a program called habitat exchanges, dubbed \u201cAirbnb for wildlife.<\/a>\u201d In a\u00a0habitat exchange<\/a>, landowners earn conservation credits by creating habitat on their property, revenues with billions in potential for farmers and ranchers.<\/p>\n

In 2016, this habitat crowdsourcing program was adopted in Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming to protect the\u00a0greater sage-grouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bird\u2019s 11-state range overlaps some of the highest oil and gas producing regions of the country that are also prone to drought and wildfires, exemplifying the complex challenges many species face today.<\/p>\n

Why we still need a law<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Farmers
Farmers and ranchers are stepping up to restore and enhance breeding and nectaring habitats<\/a> along the monarch butterfly\u2019s great migration.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike the bald eagle back in the 1970s, the sage-grouse was never listed as endangered. To keep the bird off the list, landowners instead agreed on a plan that is working better for the bird and for people.<\/p>\n

Similar efforts are under way in California for multiple species, including\u00a0Swainson\u2019s hawk<\/a>,\u00a0Chinook salmon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0monarch butterflies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such innovative solutions won\u2019t replace the Endangered Species Act, a critical backstop needed to keep American species from going extinct. But they can complement the law and, if expanded, keep the endangered species list from growing bigger than it is today.<\/p>\n

From my office window in downtown San Francisco I can now watch falcons hunt pigeons, something we just didn\u2019t see back in 1973, the year President Richard Nixon signed the ESA. The falcons are flying again because the law worked as intended.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s celebrate and defend the strong policies and innovative programs that make conservation work efficiently and effectively, while continuing to push for solutions that work for nature as well as people.<\/p>\n

This post originally ran on\u00a0EDF Voices<\/a> and is used with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the first endangered species list was created 50 years ago, it started out with 78 animals. The grizzly bear and bald eagle were among American icons that made that first list. Today, it counts 1,400 animals and 900 plants \u2013 an expansion that reflects more petitions for listings over time, but also the fact …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1951,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120554],"tags":[200,71627,34795,102689,27605,71642,75692,71875,84775,71626,42183],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-california","tag-chinook-salmon","tag-colorado","tag-endangered-species-act-success-stories","tag-esa","tag-greater-sage-grouse","tag-monarch-butterfly","tag-nevada","tag-safe-harbor","tag-swainsons-hawk","tag-wyoming"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1951"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15784,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7780\/revisions\/15784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7780"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}