Republican lawmakers have criticized the Endangered Species Act as an outdated law that does little to protect endangered plants and animals. Now researchers have published a new study that they say shows the Endangered Species Act does work. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Republican lawmakers have criticized the Endangered Species Act as
an outdated law that does little to protect endangered plants and
animals. Now researchers have published a new study that they say
shows the Endangered Species Act does work. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Researchers looked at data on the more than one thousand plants and
animals on the Endangered Species List. They found that the longer a
species is on the List the more likely it is to be classified as
improving. Kieran Suckling co-authored the study published in the
journal BioScience. He says the study shows endangered
species are better off when their habitat is protected:
“And that might sound obvious because habitat protection is
obviously good for species, but in fact that’s one of our more
controversial conclusions because the Bush administration that critical
habitat designation does not benefit species and we were able to show
that in fact it does.”
The Bush Administration has proposed that critical habitat for
endangered species be limited to the land where the plant or animal is
currently found. Some environmentalists fear this is the first move in
the administration’s attempt to dismantle the Endangered Species Act.
For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.