It takes time and money to declare a species 'endangered'
This week's decision not to protect the Mexican garter snake under the Endangered Species Act underscores just how much time, money and effort is required to declare a species officially "endangered" -- and also how little priority the current administration has placed on species protection.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges that the Mexican garter snake deserves protection as an endangered species, but FWS says it lacks the funds to make that protection a reality. The agency says that other species have a higher priority for protection -- although it doesn't name any of these "higher priority" species -- and that it will re-review the snake's position in 12 months.
This comes after several years of petitions and lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity, and literally thousands of hours of research on behalf of the FWS that helped to show just how precarious a position the Mexican garter snake is in.
It's impossible to find fault with the FWS field teams that researched the garter snake. The publication of their research findings (available online as a 163-page PDF) provides an absolutely incredible, detailed look into the declining population of the snake, the dangers it faces, the need to protect it, and the distinct possibility that it could disappear from several sites in just a few years.
Where it's easy to find fault is in the political will to protect endangered species like the Mexican garter snake. As the CBD is fond of pointing out, the Bush Administration has only protected 61 species in the last 8 years, and nearly 300 more species are candidates for ESA protection.
Meanwhile, the FWS is understaffed, underfunded, and unsupported by the political machine.
Will things change under Obama? Who knows. But we -- and the Mexican garter snake -- can only hope for more action, because further delays will only make it too late to protect too many of these species before they disappear from our planet for good.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledges that the Mexican garter snake deserves protection as an endangered species, but FWS says it lacks the funds to make that protection a reality. The agency says that other species have a higher priority for protection -- although it doesn't name any of these "higher priority" species -- and that it will re-review the snake's position in 12 months.
This comes after several years of petitions and lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity, and literally thousands of hours of research on behalf of the FWS that helped to show just how precarious a position the Mexican garter snake is in.
It's impossible to find fault with the FWS field teams that researched the garter snake. The publication of their research findings (available online as a 163-page PDF) provides an absolutely incredible, detailed look into the declining population of the snake, the dangers it faces, the need to protect it, and the distinct possibility that it could disappear from several sites in just a few years.
Where it's easy to find fault is in the political will to protect endangered species like the Mexican garter snake. As the CBD is fond of pointing out, the Bush Administration has only protected 61 species in the last 8 years, and nearly 300 more species are candidates for ESA protection.
Meanwhile, the FWS is understaffed, underfunded, and unsupported by the political machine.
Will things change under Obama? Who knows. But we -- and the Mexican garter snake -- can only hope for more action, because further delays will only make it too late to protect too many of these species before they disappear from our planet for good.
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