The Endangered Species Act

Endangered Species Act

Throughout history, there have been many species that have passed through our planet, earth. Some have survived for millions and millions of years, and others… well, they weren’t so lucky. According to Biologicaldiversity.org, many scientists believe that as of now, “our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals.” Many scientist claim that species are dying out at 1,000 to 10,000 times the normal rate (the normal rate being 5-6 species per year) at this rate, as many as 30 to 50 percent of all species may be extinct by mid-century. This is why in 1972, “President Richard Nixon declared conservational efforts in the United States aimed toward preventing the extinction of species.” (www.fws.gov)

This act was passed in order to allow the United States Secretary of the interior to be able to create a list of species and their subspecies of animals that were threatened with worldwide extinction. This act also forbids the importation of any species that is on the list of endangered animals, with the exception of importation for scientific, Educational, or zoological reasons. This Act was passed in fact due to many reasons. For example, in 1914, the passenger pigeon once being the most abundant bird in the United States was declared Extinct. Later, in 1944 the whooping crane had reached an all-time population low of only 21 birds, this prompted lawmakers to create an act that would help endangered

Throughout the latter part of the 20th century, Pesticides started being used in agriculture and crop farming. The effects of these pesticides greatly hurt species in the United States. For example, some of these pesticides weakened egg shells of Americas iconic bird, the bald eagle and as a result, baby eagle eggs often cracked while they were still developing, killing the eagle. So congressmen went back into congress and amended the act of 1966 and in 1973, they created the Endangered Species Act of 1973. This act amended things that had been stated in the previous act of 1966. Some of things enlisted in the act according to www.fws.gov that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 include “defining “endangered” and “threatened species,” it made plants and all invertebrates eligible for protection, it applied broad “take” prohibitions to all endangered animal species and allowed the prohibitions to apply to threatened animal species by special regulation and many other things that helped develop a more safer and stable environment for species that where under the endangered species