This Bird Has Spent Nearly 20 Years Waiting For Endangered Species Protection
Kittletz's Murrelet Glen TepkeHundreds of species of plants and animals have been waiting literally decades to even be considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Thankfully, that's about to change. That guy up there is a Kittlitz's murrelet, a small bird in the auk family native to the rocky southern coast of Alaska, from Anchorage out to the Aleutian Islands, and also along the coast on the Russian side of the Bering Sea. It's one of about 25,000 Kittlitz's murrelets in the world, we think. The species has had a very difficult time in the past few decades; it's dependent on glaciers, which are melting due to global warming, for one thing. It's estimated that the Exxon Valdez oil spill back in 1989 killed as many as 10 percent of the global population. Its population has been rapidly, disastrously declining. The Endangered Species Act, signed into law in 1973 by...