New York Species Success Marked By Recovery

Today, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by releasing a state-by-state summary of progress being made to recover once-imperiled wild animals and plants. The well-known legislation, which President Richard M. Nixon signed into law on December 28, 1973, was approved nearly unanimously by both Houses of Congress.

“Citizens of every state in this nation can see firsthand in their own state examples of the progress being made in bringing wildlife back from the brink of extinction,” said EDF senior ecologist Dr. David S. Wilcove. Examples of recovering wildlife in the illustrative, but not exhaustive, report range from little-known Hawaiian plants to gray wolves howling in Yellowstone and majestic bald eagles, which again soar over nearly every state.

In 1997 in New York, for the first time in at least a century, bald eagles nested along the Hudson River and produced an eaglet, which was featured on page one of The New York Times. That year the state hosted 35 pairs of eagles, up from 13 in 1990. On July 12, 1995, the bald eagle was reclassified from endangered to threatened in the lower 48 states. Peregrine falcons, which had vanished entirely from the eastern US by the mid-1960s, have returned to New York state, with 34 pairs establishing territories in 1997. The bridges and skyscrapers of New York City were home to 12 pairs of breeding peregrines in 1998, and at least 3 other non-breeding pairs also were in residence. The nesting pairs gave birth to 24 chicks, 20 of which survived. On August 26, 1998, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing the peregrine falcon from the endangered species list.

Threatened piping plovers are on the increase in New York state, rising from 191 pairs in 1989, to 256 pairs in 1997. Eight pairs of piping plovers fledged eighteen young, far above the average productivity for this species. A threatened plant, seabeach amaranth, was represented by one of the species? largest populations in 1997. The endangered roseate tern is on the increase in New York, where numbers rose from 1,318 nesting pairs in 1988, a year after the bird was listed, to 1,995 nesting pairs in 1997. Brown pelicans have expanded their summer range into New York state. The Atlantic coast population has recovered and was removed from the endangered species list February 4, 1985.

“The accomplishments of the Endangered Species Act involve many Americans ? among them the intrepid biologists who scaled trees and cliffs to return bald eagles and peregrine falcons to states from which they had vanished, determined scientists and volunteers who protected sea turtles nesting on the nation’s beaches, the Nez Perce tribe which is overseeing the return of the wolf to Idaho forests, and a young man in California who turned back from a life on the streets to aid a rare butterfly,” said EDF’s Margaret McMillan, who compiled the report.

Though hailing the many successes achieved thus far, the EDF report also noted a critical need to improve conservation efforts on privately owned land. “Because most endangered species have most of their habitat on private land, it is essential that new approaches be found to enlist more landowners as active partners in conservation efforts,” said EDF economist Robert Bonnie. EDF itself has been instrumental in designing one successful new approach, “safe harbor” agreements. Under these, landowners restore or improve habitat, but do not incur additional land use restrictions as a result of endangered species taking up residence on their property as a result of the improvements. Over a million acres of private land has been entered into safe harbor agreements since the novel idea was embraced by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt three years ago.