America's Biological Diversity

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Introduction

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Overview

The federal Endangered Species Act of 1973, now up for congressional renewal, may have saved the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, grizzly bear, American alligator and some other threatened wildlife. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists 485 species of animals and plants native to this country as still in danger of extinction, and there are biologists who say that the list should include 4,000 more names, many of them little-known reptiles, amphibians and plants.

The 1973 law “has given species a better chance for survival,” says Environmental Defense Fund attorney Michael J. Bean, “though the certainty of their survival has by no means been assured.” The last known dusky seaside sparrow died last year in a cage at Walt Disney World in Florida. The last California condors and blackfooted ferrets. clearly doomed in the wild, have been brought into captivity in desperate efforts to save them. The northern spotted owl in Pacific Northwest forests and the red-cockaded woodpecker in Southeastern pinelands are threatened by logging. Livestock grazing and off-road vehicles tear up the Western range where the desert tortoise hangs on; rare marine turtles drown in the nets of shrimp fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico.