The Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is often considered the strongest law in the world for protecting imperiled species. Defenders and CCI have worked on the ESA for many years, with a particular focus on data analysis to understand the details of how the law is implemented, developing new policy ideas, and helping defend it from legislative and administrative attacks. Here we collect CCI’s relevant works as part of the ESA project.
Publications
Funding Needs for the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Endangered Species Programs
The FY 2024 update on the funding needs for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) endangered …
Comments on FWS's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Concerning Compensatory Mitigation Mechanisms
Mitigation means steps taken to avoid, minimize, or offset the impacts of human activities on the …
Climate Sensitivity and Management of Threatened Animals Dashboard
This small dashboard examines the sensitivity of U.S. threatened animals to climate change and at …
Coproduce conservation technology with law and policy experts to increase its impact
Addressing the biodiversity crisis will mean developing and adopting new resources and methods that …
Status of the Recovery Mandate Under Section 7(a)(1) of the U.S. Endangered Species Act
The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is widely considered to be one of the strongest laws for …
A Database of Habitat Conservation Plans and Related Documents Developed Under the U.S. Endangered Species Act
Under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, non-federal parties may be permitted to take, or harm, listed …
Status of the recovery mandate under section 7(a)(1) of the U.S. Endangered Species Act
The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is widely considered to be one of the strongest laws for …
Consequences of Resource Limitations on ESA Implementation
The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is widely considered the strongest wildlife protection law in …
Comments on NOAA's Draft Mitigation Policy for Trust Resources
In biodiversity conservation, mitigation means steps taken to avoid, minimize, or offset the impacts …
Tracking Species Recovery Status to Improve Endangered Species Act Decisions
The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) protects over 2,000 species, but no concise, standardized …
Better representation is needed in Endangered Species Act implementation
In the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses the concepts of resilience, …
Update to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species program FY 2022 request
The FY 2022 update on the funding needs for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) endangered …
A Monitoring Policy Framework for the United States Endangered Species Act
Biodiversity is deteriorating at a global level as human actions like development, overexploitation, …
Benchmark for the ESA: Having a Backbone is Good for Recovery
To combat the extinction crisis, we need to identify strategies that ensure the long-term protection …
Supporting habitat conservation with automated change detection in Google Earth Engine
A significant limitation in biodiversity conservation has been the effective implementation of laws …
Finding Refuge: Imperiled Species and the National Wildlife Refuge System
As the first nation to develop a formal network of protected areas, the U.S. has led the way in …
FWS Eagle Mortality Model
This project contains data and code used to analyze the behavior of the collision risk model used by …
Where (Endangered) Wildlife Come First
Imperiled species rely on National Wildlife Refuges to shelter them from threats underlying the …
Defining habitat to promote conservation under the ESA
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 139 S. …
Limited patterns among ESA 4(b)(2) critical habitat exclusions
Areas can be excluded from critical habitat (CH) designations for economic, national security, or …
Habitat Patrol
Laws and regulations that protect imperiled species and their habitats are often limited by …
A Monitoring Policy Framework for the United States Endangered Species Act
Biodiversity is deteriorating at a global level as human actions like development, overexploitation, …
California's Desert Tortoise
After existing for millions of years in the California desert, the desert tortoise is experiencing …
Same law, diverging practice: Comparative analysis of Endangered Species Act consultations by two federal agencies
Evaluating how wildlife conservation laws are implemented is critical for safeguarding biodiversity. …
Update to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endangered species program FY 2021 request
This document serves as an update of CCI’s funding analysis in 2019 , where we found that the …
Recovery units under the Endangered Species Act could be used more widely
Recovering species is one of the main goals of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the face of …
US imperiled species are most vulnerable to habitat loss on private lands
To stem the ongoing loss of biodiversity, conservation practitioners must distinguish between …
Recovery plans need better science to support decisions that allow species to decline in abundance but be recovered
The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) is widely considered the strongest biodiversity conservation …
ESA Listings Dashboard
The Endangered Species Act protects species in danger of extinction (Endangered) or likely to become …
ESA Recovery Plans Dashboard
The Endangered Species Act requires the creation of plans for recovering listed species. Long-term …
ESA Listed Species Found in a Single State
Proposals have been put forward to remove U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from species …
Timeliness of Five Year Reviews under the Endangered Species Act
The U.S. Endangered Species Act requires a review of the status of listed species once every five …
Counties of Occurrence of ESA-Listed Species
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides tables of the counties of occurrence of each ESA-listed …
Agency plans are inadequate to conserve US endangered species under climate change
Despite widespread evidence of climate change as a threat to biodiversity, it is unclear whether …
The Endangered Species Act 101
Learn how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) works in our new series! Meg Evansen, our Conservation …
A definition of 'habitat' under the ESA
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 139 S. …
Over $1.5 billion per year is needed to recover Endangered Species Act (ESA)-listed species
Recovering species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) …
Comments on EPA's proposed revised pesticide risk assessment
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its Draft Revised Method for National …
The Endangered Species Act: Trump Administration Regulations
Disregarding more than 800,000 public comments opposing its proposal to weaken implementation of the …
Monitoring Policy for the ESA
The Endangered Species Act is considered one of the strongest acts in the world for protecting …
Novel data show expert wildlife agencies are important to endangered species protection
To protect biodiversity, conservation laws should be evaluated and improved using data. We provide a …
ESA Listings by Taxonomic Group
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has been developing a new web service to make their data more …
ESA Funding Infographic
The goals of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are to prevent extinction and recover species, but …
Missing, delayed, and old: The status of ESA recovery plans
Recovery planning is an essential part of implementing the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), but …
Automated habitat change detection methods using satellite data to improve conservation law implementation.
A significant limitation in biodiversity conservation has been the effective implementation of laws …
Section 7 Explorer
-OBSOLETE-
A Shiny app to explore section 7 consultation data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife …
Win-Win: The Endangered Species Act and Our National Parks
This report, produced in collaboration between Defenders of Wildlife and National Parks Conservation …
30 years of satellite data show imperiled species are most vulnerable to habitat loss on private lands
To stem the ongoing loss of biodiversity, there is an urgent need to distinguish effective and …
Endangered Species Act Funding
An analysis of the funding needed for the US Fish and Wildlife Service to properly implement the US …
ESAdocs Search
Thousands of pages of ESA-related documents are created every year, each containing important and …
Jaguar Recovery on the U.S. Border
The jaguar is an important keystone predator whose range extends from South America through the …
Lesser Prairie Chicken Recovery in the Great Plains
The Lesser Prairie-Chicken is an imperiled species that was formerly listed as a threatened species, …
NMFS West Coast Salmon Range (BETA)
-OBSOLETE-
An alpha-stage app to view the areas occupied by Pacific Coast salmon listed under the …
Protecting Habitat on Federal Lands
Over 1/4 of lands in the U.S. are federally owned and are essential to protecting wildlife. This …
Recovery Units Map
A map showing recovery units designated for threatened and endangered species, which allow more …
State ESAs
Under the North American model of wildlife management, states take the lead on managing many …
Dynamic recovery: Web-based ESA recovery plans
The U.S. Endangered Species Act directs the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine …
ESA Counties
Knowing where ESA-listed species live is the first step to avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating …
ESA Listing Workplan Explorer
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released a 7-year workplan used to prioritize ongoing …
The Texas Conservation Plan has not slowed oil and gas well development in dunes sagebrush lizard habitat
Background: The dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus) is an imperiled species that is …
Petition to List the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard as a Threatened or Endangered Species and Designate Critical Habitat
The dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus; hereafter, DSL) is a narrow-ranging habitat …
Refining ESA ranges with placenames and GBIF
Historically, the range maps used in implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been only …
Same law, different results: comparative analysis of Endangered Species Act consultations by two federal agencies
Evaluating how wildlife conservation laws are implemented is critical to determining how best to …
Sand Mines Destroying Dunes Sagebrush Lizard Habitat
At Defenders’ Center for Conservation Innovation, we are using satellite images to track the …
The Importance of Properly Funding the ESA
A brief overview of Congressional appropriations and agency expenditures on the Endangered Species …
ESA Section 7 Incidental Take (FWS)
An analysis of incidental take data authorized and recorded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in …
Monitoring Habitat Loss for Endangered Species Using Satellite Data
Implementing automated habitat change detection over the range of the Lesser Prairie-Chicken.
Changes in designated critical habitat, 2001-2011: Working paper
Critical habitat occupies a contentious position in endangered species policy (see, e.g., James and …
A simple, sufficient, and consistent method to score the status of threats and demography of imperiled species
Managers of large, complex wildlife conservation programs need information on the conservation …
Data contradict common perceptions about a controversial provision of the US Endangered Species Act
Analysis of FWS section 7 consultations.
