South Dakota Success Marked By Return of Rare Species

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 South Dakota, years after disappearing from the state, black-footed ferrets are once again doing well. Captive-bred ferrets were released in South Dakota in 1994, and the population is now multi-generational, with progeny of released ferrets giving rise to yet another generation. In 1998, 70 young were born in South Dakota. Bald eagles are now nesting in South Dakota, where no pairs were found in 1990. In 1997, eight pairs occupied territories. On July 12, 1995, the bald eagle was reclassified from endangered to threatened in the lower 48 states.

“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.