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How Do We Deal with Conservation-Reliant Species?

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How Do We Deal with Conservation-Reliant Species? How do we deal with conservation-reliant species? Working Group 2016 CBSG Annual Meeting Puebla, Mexico How do we deal with conservation-reliant species? Sarah Long Aim The aim of this Working Group session is to discuss the prioritization and allocation of resources for conserving species that may always be reliant on some human intervention to manage threats or foster population viability. Background Implicit in many definitions of recovery (including that of the US Endangered Species Act) is the assumption that threats to species can be eliminated or mitigated sufficiently such that a recovered species would be able to sustain itself without human intervention. However, if the threats are human- induced they may be difficult to halt (e.g., habitat fragmentation and loss, conflicts with human property or land use, climate change effects, etc.). So some kind of assistance or management may be necessary in perpetuity for an estimated 84% of endangered and threatened species with USFWS recovery plans (Goble et al 2012). How should this change the prioritization of species for initial listing or allocation of resources? How does this change the roles of government, non-governmental organizations, or private people in conservation? Literature Cited Goble, D.D., J. A. Wiens, J. M. Scott, T. D. Male, and J.A. Hall. Conservation-Reliant Species. 2012. BioScience. Vol.62 No.10. POLICY PERSPECTIVE Conservation-reliant species and the future of conservation J. Michael Scott1,DaleD.Goble2, Aaron M. Haines3, John A. Wiens4, & Maile C. Neel5 1U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Research Unit, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-1141, USA 2College of Law, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA 3Department of Science and Mathematics, Upper Iowa University, Fayette, IA 52142, USA 4PRBO Conservation Science, 3820 Cypress Drive #11, Petaluma, CA 94954, USA 5Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture and Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA Keywords Abstract Conservation-reliant species; endangered species; Endangered Species Act; extinction; Species threatened with extinction are the focus of mounting conservation management strategies; priority-setting; concerns throughout the world. Thirty-seven years after passage of the U.S. recovery plans. Endangered Species Act in 1973, we conclude that the Act’s underlying assumption—that once the recovery goals for a species are met it will no longer Correspondence require continuing management—is false. Even when management actions J. Michael Scott, U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Research Unit, succeed in achieving biological recovery goals, maintenance of viable popu- University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-1141, lations of many species will require continuing, species-specific intervention. USA. Tel: (208) 885-6960; fax: (208) 885-9080. Such species are “conservation reliant.” To assess the scope of this problem, E-mail: [email protected] we reviewed all recovery plans for species listed as endangered or threatened under the Act. Our analysis indicates that 84% of the species listed under the Received: 31 August 2009; accepted 13 January Act are conservation reliant. These species will require continuing, long-term 2010. management investments. If these listed species are representative of the larger number of species thought to be imperiled in the United States and elsewhere, doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00096.x the challenge facing conservation managers will be logistically, economically, and politically overwhelming. Conservation policies will need to be adapted to include ways of prioritizing actions, implementing innovative management approaches, and involving a broader spectrum of society. gered Species Act of 1973 established “a program for the Introduction conservation of ... endangered species and threatened There is a broad consensus that humans have fundamen- species” and “the ecosystems upon which [these] species tally altered the earth and placed many of its species at depend” (16 U.S.C. sec. 1531(b)). The Act was based on risk of extinction (e.g., Janzen 1998; McKibben 2006; the assumption that preventing extinction is a straightfor- Meyer 2006; Kareiva et al. 2007; Wiens 2007). Human ward process: identify species at risk of extinction, docu- impacts have increased over the past several decades as ment the factors that imperil them, conduct research to local has become global and the scale of human influ- determine the conservation measures necessary to elim- ences has multiplied (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment inate those threats, implement those measures on a bio- 2005; IPCC 2007). Not only are extinction rates increas- logically relevant scale, and, when populations rebound ing, but the geographic and taxonomic scope of threat- to the point at which they are self-sustaining in the wild ened extinctions is broadening as well (Ricketts et al. without the protection they are afforded under the Act, 2005). remove them from the list (“delist”), and declare them The growing recognition of the magnitude of human “recovered.” impacts on nature and of the current and looming wave The expectation when the Act was drafted was of global extinctions has prompted both international and that recovery would be commonplace once the ap- national programs to protect imperiled species (Balmford propriate actions were taken. To be sure, there have et al. 2005; Goble 2006). In the United States, the Endan- been notable successes, including the peregrine falcon Conservation Letters 3 (2010) 91–97 Copyright and Photocopying: c 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 91 Conservation-reliant species J. M. Scott et al. (Falco peregrinus), Aleutian cackling goose (Branta hutchin- management, only to be relisted within a decade as sii leucopareia), and gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus). But populations declined, possibly in response to threats not such species are the exception rather than the rule (Dore- considered in the initial listing (Australian Government mus & Pagel 2001; New & Sands 2003). On December 31, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the 2007, only 15 of the 1,136 listed species had met recovery Arts 2009). goals and been removed from the list (USFWS 2009a). The U.S. Endangered Species Act does not recognize In the United States, the Endangered Species Act re- distinctions among species at different points on this quires that the decision to list or delist a species be based conservation-reliance continuum; species are either listed on findings on the risk the species faces from a statu- (as threatened or endangered) or not. After a previously tory list of five threat categories: habitat loss, overutiliza- listed species is delisted, it receives no legal protection be- tion, disease or predation, inadequate regulatory mecha- yond that accorded to other species that are not (legally) nisms, and any other reason (ESA sec. 4(a)(1)(A)-(E)). imperiled. It is this lack of species-specific protection fol- The key to success under the Act, therefore, is elimi- lowing delisting that is the source of the problem fac- nating the threat(s) that led to a species’ imperilment. ing the Kirtland’s warbler, the grizzly bear, and the other If these threats cannot be eliminated, continued man- species that are conservation reliant. agement will be required and this management will re- If only a few of the species currently listed under quire “existing regulatory mechanisms” to ensure that the U.S. Act are conservation reliant, then the chal- it continues for the foreseeable future. For example, al- lenge is manageable. But if conservation reliance is though the population recovery goals for Kirtland’s war- widespread, the task for conservation managers would be bler (Dendroica kirtlandii) have been met since 2001, the overwhelming. Managing species at risk of extinction is species has not been delisted because its maintenance expensive, logistically difficult, and often politically con- requires continuing and intensive management (timber tentious (witness the controversy surrounding manage- stand management and control of brown-headed cow- ment of the spotted owl, Strix occidentalis,intheU.S. birds, Molothrus ater) (Bocetti & Goble 2010). Without Pacific Northwest; Yaffee 1994), making it unlikely that such management, the species would once again become all conservation-reliant species can receive the necessary imperiled. management attention. Managers and policy makers will We have previously labeled such species “conserva- need to establish priorities and make hard decisions. tion reliant” because they will require some form of con- servation management for the foreseeable future (Scott et al. 2005). Conservation reliance is a continuum en- Methods compassing different degrees of management. It extends from species that occur only in captivity, through those To evaluate the magnitude of the problem, we ana- that are maintained in the wild by releases from captive- lyzed information from the recovery plans developed for breeding programs and those that require continuous species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. We control of predators or human disturbance, to species used these plans because they provide a rich and exten- needing only periodic habitat management. Although the sive body of data about the conservation-management intensity and frequency of management actions required requirements of a large number of species at risk of ex- varies among species at different points on this contin- tinction. We reviewed the
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