Continuing management needed for most threatened and endangered species
Monday, September 10, 2012 - 02:50
in Biology & Nature
The Endangered Species Act (ESA)—the key US law protecting species listed as threatened or endangered—focuses on boosting species' numbers until they reach recovery thresholds and so can be taken off the ESA list. Almost 1400 species are now listed. Yet as many as 84 percent of currently listed species with management plans will face threats to their biological recovery even after they are considered "recovered" under the act, according to an article by Dale D. Goble and his colleagues in the October issue of BioScience. These species will require continuing management actions. Goble and colleagues argue that individual, formal conservation agreements are the best way to help such "conservation-reliant species."