The Road to 100 Success Stories for |
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The U.S. Senate declared May 18, 2007, Endangered Species Day to “encourage the people of the United States to become educated about, and aware of, threats to species, success stories in species recovery, and the opportunity to promote species conservation worldwide.”
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Click on the map to find species in your region |
The resolution mentions a few of the Endangered Species Act’s most well known successes: bald eagle (increased from 416 to 9,789 pairs between 1963 and 2006), whooping crane (increased from 54 to 513 birds between 1967 and 2006), Kirtland’s warbler (increased from 210 to 1,415 pairs between 1971 and 2005), peregrine falcon (increased from 324 to 1,700 pairs between 1975 and 2000), gray wolf (populations increased dramatically in the Northern Rockies, Southwest, and Great Lakes), gray whale (increased from 13,095 to 26,635 whales between 1968 and 1998), and the grizzly bear (increased from about 224 to over 500 bears in the Yellowstone area between 1975 and 2005).
These are just a few of the hundreds of species whose populations have soared thanks to the Endangered Species Act. A recent study of all endangered species in the Northeastern United States found that 93% increased or remained stable since being placed of the endangered list. Few other laws can boast that kind of success.
In keeping with the intent of Endangered Species Day, we present 100 recovery success stories spanning every U.S. state and territory. Click on the map above to find species on the road to recovery in your region. You’ll learn about the Big Bend gambusia, a tiny Texas fish that increased from for a couple dozen holdouts on the knife-edge of extinction to a thriving population of over 50,000. And the state bird of Hawaii, the Hawaiian goose, which increased from 400 birds in 1980 to 1,275 in 2003. And the Virginia big-eared bat, the state bat of Virginia, which increased from 3,500 in 1979 to 18,442 in 2004. The Governor even wrote a poem about it:
We have a state dog and a fish and a bird.
And of the fossil I’m sure you have heard.
So why not a bat?
What's wrong with that?
The state beverage is no more absurd.
California’s southern sea otter increased from 1,789 in 1976 to 2,735 in 2005 while its tiny San Clemente Indian paintbrush increased from 500 plants in 1979 to more than 3,500 in 1997. Florida’s red wolf increased from 17 in 1980 to 257 in 2003 while its Key deer increased from 200 in 1971 to 750 in 2001.
On this, our nation’s first Endangered Species Day, we truly have much to be thankful for. So do the imperiled plants and animals who share our deserts, forests, rivers and compassion.