Oral Paper

         Conservation Biology

Where are they now? What Happened to the plants first proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act?

Presenting Author
Linda Howard
Description
When the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was passed in 1973, the Smithsonian Institute was asked to compile a list of plant species to recommend for protection under the new law. By 1975 they had amassed a list of just under 3,200 plant species from around the country which became the first bulk listing proposal under the ESA. During the subsequent fifty years that the law has been in place, fewer than 1,000 plant species have been listed and only 20 plant species have been de-listed due to recovery, which left me asking what happened to the rest of the species and why weren’t they listed? After tracking the species-level changes in taxonomy, I compiled threat assessments from NatureServe and the IUCN Red List to create a snapshot of endangerment for each species. Once I assembled the threat assessments, I excluded those species that have been listed, de-listed, or are currently under review for listing.  Using the remaining species, I combed through the U.S. Fish & Wildlife service notices that are published in the Federal Register to track the justification for not listing each species.  I searched in the Federal Register documents from 1980, 1985, 1990, 1993, and 1996 which were the years during which the listing proposal for these species were reviewed. The taxonomic revisions made since 1975 have reduced the overall number of distinct species from the original list to a little more than 2,700 species and infraspecific taxa. I discovered that just over 20% of those species had been ESA listed during the last fifty years. These 550 species account for nearly 60% of all of the plant species ever listed.  Approximately 2,100 species were never listed and threat assessments for those species indicate the highest levels of threat in an additional 54% of the species. The rationale provided by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service indicates that insufficient evidence was the primary reason for not listing more than 58% of the unlisted species. Since 2000 the number of plant species being listed has declined at a time when threats against plants are increasing. The failure to list so many of the species that were first proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act has resulted in further declines and presumed extinctions. The listing shortfall reveals flaws in the law itself and the listing process and undermines the value of the law for protecting plants. The lack of baseline knowledge of so many species is equally important and should be seen as evidence of the need for enhanced botanical capacity to prevent future extinctions.