The news is incredibly sad. Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed removing 23 species from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to extinction. Unlike success stories including bald eagles, humpback whales and gray wolves, this “removal” means that the animals are considered extinct and never to be seen again.
By Ann Paul
Created 50 years ago in 1973, the ESA protects threatened or endangered fish, wildlife and plants by preparing and implementing plans for their recovery. But the ESA failed to save these 23 species including birds, plants, bats and plants. Most of them were rare or even gone from our country before the act was passed, their populations decimated primarily by habitat loss, but also by intentional destruction by humans.
Although these species are lost forever, continuing and strengthening the efforts of the ESA is critical. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland offers, “The Endangered Species Act has been incredibly effective at preventing species from going extinct and has also inspired action to conserve at-risk species and their habitat before they need to be listed as endangered or threatened.” And she’s right. We all know of birds that, once listed, are now more plentiful, including among others, bald eagles, wood storks and brown pelicans.
But it clearly isn’t working across the board. In this round, we lost eight freshwater mussels. Two fish – the San Marcos gambusia and the Scioto madtom – will never again be found swimming in our nation’s waters. The little Mariana fruit bat and the bridled white-eye (a bird) have long been gone from the skies of Guam. Hawaii has lost forever eight amazing birds and one perennial flowering mint from the west slopes of Lanai.
But the two species that hit home – literally – are two that occurred in Florida: the ivory-billed woodpecker and Bachman’s warbler. A huge woodpecker, ivory-billeds relied on old-growth forests of the south, which were harvested extensively, and nearly completely, to provide wood for human use. The last confirmed sighting was in 1944 in Louisiana. In the weeks since the original announcement, the FWS has decided to delay the “extinction” designation for the ivory-billed woodpecker. It seems a dim hope remains.
However, the case is different for Bachman’s warbler, a small, brightly colored yellow and gray songbird that nested in South Carolina forests and wintered in Cuba, migrating through Florida each spring and fall. They haven’t been seen in the U.S. since 1962.
The loss of these species is a loss for us all. These aren’t isolated events; their extinction reflects a larger trend of biodiversity loss around the world. A growing consensus agrees that earth has entered into a “sixth mass extinction” since the current rates of extinction are 1,000 to 10,000 higher than ‘background’ extinction rates. A recent study of more than 71,000 animal species determined that 48% of them were declining in population. Unlike the five previous mass extinction events, this one is attributed to a single species — humans.
So, what can be done to make sure species don’t continue to slide down to extinction? Mostly, it’s habitat protection, through the acquisition and restoration of environmentally important lands. The Biden-Harris administration’s America the Beautiful initiative, a locally led and voluntary nationwide effort to conserve, connect, and restore 30% of lands and waters by 2030, has the right idea.
In Florida, we’ve been working on this for a long time – under Governor Bob Martinez and other leaders since then, we have purchased many important habitats across Florida. The national effort has been extensive here too, with national parks, forests and other lands offering critical resources for our wildlife.
One of the most impressive programs has been in Hillsborough County, beginning in 1987 as an ordinance, then expanded and approved by voters in 1990 and again in 2008. Since then, the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) has purchased and is maintaining over 63,000 acres of ecologically important lands..
Last August, the Hillsborough County Commission wisely approved a bond issue to provide $59 million for land acquisition by the program. In March, two important properties were purchased to provide a critical wildlife corridor connection and ecological buffer to the Little Manatee River Nature Preserve in fast-growing southeast Hillsborough County.
That leaves a paltry $12 million in the approved bond referendum coffers. It’s time for our voters to allocate more funds through a referendum on the 2024 ballot for land acquisition and management in our county – Why? Because land isn’t getting any cheaper and the rate of development in our part of the U.S. is unprecedented. It’s now or never for our remaining ecologically valuable lands.
In 2008, at the height of a global financial crisis, Hillsborough County voters supported the ELAPP referendum by 80% — the largest landslide on any ballot issue for any referendum across the country. These are challenging times now, but I’m confident that voters will continue to support this initiative again because we recognize the value of preserves that protect our quality of life at an average cost of only $12 per household per year.
We have beautiful habitats here in our county that can still be protected through our conservation lands program – lands that provide habitat for birds and other wildlife and especially the wildlife corridors connecting preserves that are so important for populations to survive. Lands that store stormwater, reduce downstream flooding, provide drinking water and clean air, and sites for outdoor recreation so prized for our citizens and visitors. Our county is a state and national leader in locally driven conservation lands acquisition and we must continue this conservation lands acquisition work for our own good.
But we also need to support national and international efforts to prevent further extinctions. We can’t continue to lose species at the current rate and expect that our species – human beings – won’t be negatively impacted as well.
Ann Paul is president of Tampa Audubon, the Florida Ornithological Society and the Florida Birding & Nature Festival. Before retiring, she was Audubon Florida’s regional coordinator for Tampa Bay. Views expressed in this article are the opinion of the writer, not necessarily those of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.