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Gulf Today
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Endangered Species Act faces its own existential threat
We are on the cusp of losing the integrity of one of the most significant environmental acts ever enacted in the United States. Why should this matter? As the Pulitzer Prize-winning evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson put it: 'We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.' Wilson considered the Endangered Species Act of 1973 the most important piece of conservation legislation in our nation's history. I know what that means. I know because I lived it. Fifty years ago, when I began studying peregrine falcons in Colorado, there seemed little hope the species would escape extinction. I was well aware of the shocking statistics: From a historical population of 8,773 pairs in North America, only 500 pairs were known to remain on the continent in 1975. In the Rockies, only 14 birds were surviving. The Endangered Species Act arrived in the nick of time. It had been passed by a near-unanimous bipartisan vote in Congress and signed into law by President Nixon. The act did several things immediately. Each step was critical. It mandated the formation and funding of 'recovery plans' for endangered species, bringing together teams of the best scientific minds to design strategies for averting extinction. It also called for protecting critical habitat — the natural landscape surrounding the breeding, feeding and resting sites of endangered species. And it did something more. The law required federal agencies to work to ensure that any actions they might fund did not indirectly threaten, or 'harm,' the existence of an endangered species. The Endangered Species Act worked. Thanks to the legislation and the way it has been enforced, today we have the opportunity to watch soaring bald eagles in the lower 48, see gray whales migrate along the California coast and appreciate the grace and speed of the species that I researched, the American peregrine falcon. At present, the act has protected more than 2,000 species. There are now more than 3,000 pairs of peregrine falcons in North America — a number unthinkable to me in 1975, when so few individuals remained. Today we can still witness the inspirational spectacles of peregrines slicing the air, hurtling in a 200-mile-per-hour dive to the earth. The odds for such success in the future suddenly don't look good. After 52 years of bipartisan efforts working to save species, the Trump administration is pushing mightily to undo the Endangered Species Act, claiming the law is in need of updating. This is the wrong term for what is being proposed, according to biologists — 'unraveling' is more like it. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking to remove the regulatory definition of 'harm' from the act, and rely instead on the definition of 'take.' 'Take' in this instance means actions that harass or kill species directly. 'Harm,' however, has been understood in much broader terms, as actions that may incidentally jeopardize a northern spotted owl, or a Palos Verdes blue butterfly, or various populations of wild salmon, and especially as actions that could degrade an endangered species' habitat. This simple distinction between direct and indirect threats is crucial. A species is its food, shelter and breeding grounds. From the Endangered Species Act's inception, the interpretation of 'harm' has recognized that. Without it the act's power to preserve critical habitats — and save or protect plants and animals — could be dissolved. There is something else missing from the current discussion of upending the act. The Endangered Species Act benefits people far more than most of us realise. Animals and plants we may consider inconsequential may yet hold promises for our future, in medicine, in agriculture, in our sharing of this Earth. Each living species is a holding tank, a treasure chest of unique genetic material that has evolved within its habitat for thousands of years. Even with a robust Endangered Species Act, scientists believe human activity is extinguishing species at a rate that far exceeds what's natural. Critics of the Endangered Species Act see it as keeping resources from people when it prevents a logging operation or the drilling of an oil well to protect a species. It's better understood as maintaining biodiversity for people, and for the health and safety of the planet. Removing the proper definition of 'harm' from the Endangered Species Act will mean removing habitat that is essential for a species' survival. The rule change will be decided soon. The public has until Monday to comment. I hope they will, on the side of this visionary law. The Center for Biological Diversity lists the monarch butterfly, the Florida panther, the desert tortoise and seven more at-risk species that right now need habitat protection. To end 50 years of common-sense interpretation of the Endangered Species Act — the pivotal law that brought the peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on Earth, back from extinction — would be a sad day for America.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Contributor: The Endangered Species Act faces its own existential threat
We are on the cusp of losing the integrity of one of the most significant environmental acts ever enacted in the United States. Why should this matter? As the Pulitzer Prize-winning evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson put it: 'We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.' Wilson considered the Endangered Species Act of 1973 the most important piece of conservation legislation in our nation's history. I know what that means. I know because I lived it. Fifty years ago, when I began studying peregrine falcons in Colorado, there seemed little hope the species would escape extinction. I was well aware of the shocking statistics: From a historical population of 8,773 pairs in North America, only 500 pairs were known to remain on the continent in 1975. In the Rockies, only 14 birds were surviving. Read more: How the EPA's environmental about-face could upend California's climate efforts The Endangered Species Act arrived in the nick of time. It had been passed by a near-unanimous bipartisan vote in Congress and signed into law by President Nixon. The act did several things immediately. Each step was critical. It mandated the formation and funding of 'recovery plans' for endangered species, bringing together teams of the best scientific minds to design strategies for averting extinction. It also called for protecting critical habitat — the natural landscape surrounding the breeding, feeding and resting sites of endangered species. And it did something more. The law required federal agencies to work to ensure that any actions they might fund did not indirectly threaten, or 'harm,' the existence of an endangered species. The Endangered Species Act worked. Thanks to the legislation and the way it has been enforced, today we have the opportunity to watch soaring bald eagles in the lower 48, see gray whales migrate along the California coast and appreciate the grace and speed of the species that I researched, the American peregrine falcon. At present, the act has protected more than 2,000 species. Read more: Contributor: DOGE and Trump quash a Klamath River basin comeback There are now more than 3,000 pairs of peregrine falcons in North America — a number unthinkable to me in 1975, when so few individuals remained. Today we can still witness the inspirational spectacles of peregrines slicing the air, hurtling in a 200-mile-per-hour dive to the earth. The odds for such success in the future suddenly don't look good. After 52 years of bipartisan efforts working to save species, the Trump administration is pushing mightily to undo the Endangered Species Act, claiming the law is in need of updating. This is the wrong term for what is being proposed, according to biologists — 'unraveling' is more like it. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking to remove the regulatory definition of 'harm' from the act, and rely instead on the definition of 'take.' Read more: 'Another broken promise': California environmental groups reel from EPA grant cancellations 'Take' in this instance means actions that harass or kill species directly. 'Harm,' however, has been understood in much broader terms, as actions that may incidentally jeopardize a northern spotted owl, or a Palos Verdes blue butterfly, or various populations of wild salmon, and especially as actions that could degrade an endangered species' habitat. This simple distinction between direct and indirect threats is crucial. A species is its food, shelter and breeding grounds. From the Endangered Species Act's inception, the interpretation of 'harm' has recognized that. Without it the act's power to preserve critical habitats — and save or protect plants and animals — could be dissolved. There is something else missing from the current discussion of upending the act. The Endangered Species Act benefits people far more than most of us realize. Read more: Most money for endangered species goes to a small number of creatures, leaving others in limbo Animals and plants we may consider inconsequential may yet hold promises for our future, in medicine, in agriculture, in our sharing of this Earth. Each living species is a holding tank, a treasure chest of unique genetic material that has evolved within its habitat for thousands of years. Even with a robust Endangered Species Act, scientists believe human activity is extinguishing species at rate that far exceeds what's natural. Critics of the Endangered Species Act see it as keeping resources from people when it prevents a logging operation or the drilling of an oil well to protect a species. It's better understood as maintaining biodiversity for people, and for the health and safety of the planet. Removing the proper definition of 'harm' from the Endangered Species Act will mean removing habitat that is essential for a species' survival. The rule change will be decided soon. The public has until Monday to comment. I hope they will, on the side of this visionary law. The Center for Biological Diversity lists the monarch butterfly, the Florida panther, the desert tortoise and seven more at-risk species that right now need habitat protection. To end 50 years of common-sense interpretation of the Endangered Species Act — the pivotal law that brought the peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on Earth, back from extinction — would be a sad day for America. Marcy Cottrell Houle is a wildlife biologist and author of many books including 'Wing for My Flight: The Peregrine Falcons of Chimney Rock.' If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
The Endangered Species Act faces its own existential threat
We are on the cusp of losing the integrity of one of the most significant environmental acts ever enacted in the United States. Why should this matter? As the Pulitzer Prize-winning evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson put it: 'We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.' Wilson considered the Endangered Species Act of 1973 the most important piece of conservation legislation in our nation's history. I know what that means. I know because I lived it. Fifty years ago, when I began studying peregrine falcons in Colorado, there seemed little hope the species would escape extinction. I was well aware of the shocking statistics: From a historical population of 8,773 pairs in North America, only 500 pairs were known to remain on the continent in 1975. In the Rockies, only 14 birds were surviving. The Endangered Species Act arrived in the nick of time. It had been passed by a near-unanimous bipartisan vote in Congress and signed into law by President Nixon. The act did several things immediately. Each step was critical. It mandated the formation and funding of 'recovery plans' for endangered species, bringing together teams of the best scientific minds to design strategies for averting extinction. It also called for protecting critical habitat — the natural landscape surrounding the breeding, feeding and resting sites of endangered species. And it did something more. The law required federal agencies to work to ensure that any actions they might fund did not indirectly threaten, or 'harm,' the existence of an endangered species. The Endangered Species Act worked. Thanks to the legislation and the way it has been enforced, today we have the opportunity to watch soaring bald eagles in the lower 48, see gray whales migrate along the California coast and appreciate the grace and speed of the species that I researched, the American peregrine falcon. At present, the act has protected more than 2,000 species. There are now more than 3,000 pairs of peregrine falcons in North America — a number unthinkable to me in 1975, when so few individuals remained. Today we can still witness the inspirational spectacles of peregrines slicing the air, hurtling in a 200-mile-per-hour dive to the earth. The odds for such success in the future suddenly don't look good. After 52 years of bipartisan efforts working to save species, the Trump administration is pushing mightily to undo the Endangered Species Act, claiming the law is in need of updating. This is the wrong term for what is being proposed, according to biologists — 'unraveling' is more like it. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking to remove the regulatory definition of 'harm' from the act, and rely instead on the definition of 'take.' 'Take' in this instance means actions that harass or kill species directly. 'Harm,' however, has been understood in much broader terms, as actions that may incidentally jeopardize a northern spotted owl, or a Palos Verdes blue butterfly, or various populations of wild salmon, and especially as actions that could degrade an endangered species' habitat. This simple distinction between direct and indirect threats is crucial. A species is its food, shelter and breeding grounds. From the Endangered Species Act's inception, the interpretation of 'harm' has recognized that. Without it the act's power to preserve critical habitats — and save or protect plants and animals — could be dissolved. There is something else missing from the current discussion of upending the act. The Endangered Species Act benefits people far more than most of us realize. Animals and plants we may consider inconsequential may yet hold promises for our future, in medicine, in agriculture, in our sharing of this Earth. Each living species is a holding tank, a treasure chest of unique genetic material that has evolved within its habitat for thousands of years. Even with a robust Endangered Species Act, scientists believe human activity is extinguishing species at rate that far exceeds what's natural. Critics of the Endangered Species Act see it as keeping resources from people when it prevents a logging operation or the drilling of an oil well to protect a species. It's better understood as maintaining biodiversity for people, and for the health and safety of the planet. Removing the proper definition of 'harm' from the Endangered Species Act will mean removing habitat that is essential for a species' survival. The rule change will be decided soon. The public has until Monday to comment. I hope they will, on the side of this visionary law. The Center for Biological Diversity lists the monarch butterfly, the Florida panther, the desert tortoise and seven more at-risk species that right now need habitat protection. To end 50 years of common-sense interpretation of the Endangered Species Act — the pivotal law that brought the peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on Earth, back from extinction — would be a sad day for America. Marcy Cottrell Houle is a wildlife biologist and author of many books including 'Wing for My Flight: The Peregrine Falcons of Chimney Rock.'
Telegraph
10-03-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Social justice is destroying the pleasure of reading
In news that will depress English teachers like me everywhere, new polling suggests that 40 per cent of Britons have not read or listened to a book in the past year. There are some fairly predictable demographic differences: people who have picked up a book in the past 12 months are more likely to be older, women and middle-class. Yet the overall picture remains the same: whether paperback or hardback, fiction or non-fiction, physical or audiobook, people simply aren't reading as much anymore. Screen-time is the obvious culprit. We are so used to consuming the world in snippets on our smartphones – posts, video clips, episodes – that the sustained concentration of reading has become too challenging for our overstimulated brains. Mornings previously spent reading in bed are now replaced with scrolling through social media; commutes have become time for composing e-mails rather than devouring spy thrillers; quiet evenings are dominated by binge-watching limitless TV while books lay untouched. In our world of shiny new toys, we have collectively forgotten what a gift reading is, and the dopamine hit from our omnipresent screens will always win over the more subtle and long-term pleasure of the page. As the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson put it: 'we are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.' Yet, as someone who is regularly searching for reading recommendations for reluctant teenage readers, there is something else that I have noticed: it is increasingly difficult to find a really enjoyable story. If students (and adults) are going to push through the addictive pull to look at their phones rather than a paperback, then they need something entertaining or escapist. But what readers want and what readers get are no longer the same. Publishing is stuck in an ideological cul-de-sac. Books must be about 'lived experience', social justice and trauma. Award-winners are chosen for the correctness of their message or the cultural experiences they represent rather than the quality of their writing. Identity has trumped character, and timely 'issues' such as race and sexuality have trumped narrative. Take The Trinity Schools Book Award. It showcases contemporary fiction for 11-to-14 year olds. This year, for their older readers, among the books they have shortlisted are Hurricane Summer by Asha Bromfield, which explores 'colourism' in Jamaica, and The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, a 'queer fantasy'. These 'timely' topics may appeal to some young readers, but in my experience students tend to prefer books that aren't easily summarised by hashtags and buzzwords. The Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman, for example, is a dystopia that is exciting precisely because it is morally grey. Reading is ultimately a habit, and habits need to be practised. Parents need to role-model reading to their children; teenagers need redirecting to a book rather than a blue light before bed; and adults need to remember that reading is one of the best activities to do in our busy world. For reading to be a habit rather than a chore it needs to be enjoyable, and publishers should focus on giving readers a diverse range of really good stories rather than a good range of really diverse characters.
