Report Highlights Failures of Endangered Species Act

Federally funded fiction.

“The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been so ineffective at recovering species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has fabricated a record of success.”

Robert Gordon, The Heritage Foundation

Revealing a stunning record of failure and fabrication over nearly half-a-century, a new report by Robert Gordon of the Heritage Foundation calls for sweeping administrative reforms of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Enacted in 1973, the ESA has managed to “recover” only 40 species, or slightly less than one species per year.

“If not one more bird. beetle, or bear were added to the list of federally endangered or threatened animals and plants and somehow species recovered at 10 times that rate,” the report notes, “It would take well over a century-and-a-half to work through the current list. There is, however, no indication that the list of regulated species will stop growing.”

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