Endangered list is `where species go to die,' critics say

By Sandy Bauers

The Philadelphia Inquirer

October 6, 2006

PHILADELPHIA - When a new list of species worthy of federal protection came out recently, the howls of protest were not about the ones that didn't make the list.

They were about the ones that did.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added seven species to a list now totaling 279 "candidates" - those that warrant federal protection but are a few procedural steps away from being declared threatened or endangered.

The additions are two Florida butterflies, two Alabama snails, the pricklyapple cactus, the New England cottontail, and the red knot, a shorebird that alights on Delaware Bay beaches every spring to refuel on crab eggs.

While the list gives a species in trouble a bit more cachet and a dribble of federal money, critics say it is a death trap. Once on the list, few species graduate to the next level and get the full legal muscle that goes with being declared threatened or endangered.

The candidate list, released Sept. 12, "gives the appearance of action without really taking any," said the American Bird Conservancy's Perry Plumart, who has prowled meetings and stalked decision-makers for years to plead the case of the red knot.

"Policy purgatory," echoed New Jersey Audubon's Eric Stiles.

"It's essentially where species go to die," said Jason Rylander, staff lawyer with Defenders of Wildlife.

According to a study by the Center for Biological Diversity, 24 candidate species did just that while they awaited a boost to threatened or endangered.

One species the center identified as having gone extinct while on the list is Guam's cardinal honey-eater. The governor of the U.S. territory petitioned the service to list it in 1979, and it was made a candidate in 1982. It has not been seen since 1984.

On average, said the Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group, species linger on the list 17 years.

That is time the red knot does not have. A computer model has predicted the bird could be extinct within four years.

The New England cottontail is teetering as well. Its geographic range has declined 85 percent since 1960.

John Litvaitis, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, said full federal protection - not just the candidate list - was the "key to survival."

Others, however, say the list works. In fact, Jaret Daniels, a butterfly expert with the University of Florida, said full federal protection might be too cumbersome for the two Florida butterflies that were recently made candidates.

The butterflies, the Florida leafwing and Bartram's hairstreak, have been reduced to isolated populations in just two locations.

The red knot comes to Delaware Bay partway through an epic migration from the tip of South America to the Arctic. The fat-rich eggs it depends on to gain enough weight to resume the trip are those of the horseshoe crab.

The crabs, however, are used as bait for conch, a delicacy in Asia. With an increase in the crab harvest, numbers of red knots on the bay have plummeted from nearly 100,000 in the 1990s to just 13,000.

Last spring, New Jersey halted the crab harvest for two years, but surrounding states still allow a limited harvest. Delaware is considering new restrictions.

Conservationists now see the red knot as emblematic of problems within the Fish and Wildlife Service.

"I think the service is falling down on the job," Plumart said. "The reality is that the bird is in danger of winking out."

A main problem, the service and its critics agree, is money.

In 2005, the research, public hearings and other requirements to propel a species to the threatened or endangered lists cost as much as $300,000, according to the service.

And what money the service does have - $5.1 million for listings this year - is siphoned off by legal expenses.

High Vickery, a spokesman for the Interior Department, said the legal floodgates opened after a 1997 provision of the Endangered Species Act that required that a "critical habitat" be mapped before a species could be listed.

The process was so complicated and contentious, he said, that it became a "litigation magnet."

Responding to lawsuits "automatically trumps" other work, said Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service. As a result, she said, "we may not be able to address the species that biologically have the most significant threats. That's become the nature of the beast."

It has become a Catch-22. The service is so preoccupied with suits challenging its failure to list a species that the only way to get a species listed may be to sue.

As of January, the service was embroiled in 31 lawsuits, was subject to 56 court orders, and was responding to 26 notices of intent to sue, Fellows said.

"Right now," Vickery said, "you've got lawyers and judges setting the agenda for the Fish and Wildlife Service rather than professional biologists."

Audubon's Stiles says he sees no way around it. "The only tool we have left as a conservation community is to litigate," he said. "It's unfortunate."

Critics say there is also a lack of political will to list species.

Based on data from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Center for Biological Diversity has determined that listings under the current administration have averaged 10 species a year, compared with 65 a year during the Clinton administration and 59 a year during George H.W. Bush's administration.

Conservationists say the act can work. Of 1,346 domestic species designated as threatened or endangered since the 1973 act was passed, 11 have recovered enough to be delisted. Eight have gone extinct.

It's "an effective tool for preventing extinction," said Noah Greenwald, a biologist with the center. "But it can only save the species if they're actually designated as threatened or endangered."

A full list of "candidate" species is at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/wildlife.html