From the forests of the coast range to the mountains and high Prairie,
to the rivers that cut through the mall.
There are few parts of the Northwest that
have been untouched by the Endangered Species Act
and anything that far reaching is bound to rub some folks the wrong way.
Two very fundamental American ideals come
crashing together.
And one is this concept of Teddy Roosevelt wild West,
you know, uh
wildlife preserving that
and private property rights, you know,
private property rights is a very American ideal.
And how do you, how do you reconcile those two?
That's Paul Hinson who works
Oregon State supervisor for the US Fish
and wildlife Service before retiring recently,
in his view, the ES A
Endangered Peace Act is an unequivocal success.
And Kim Kratz who helps oversee salmon recovery for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
I think that the Endangered Species Act has had a
pretty significant role in keeping these population from going extinct.
That's not exactly a surprising take from two
people in charge of implementing the Act,
but Henson explained his reasoning. Uh you know, it stopped extinctions,
it
impressed upon
the country, the need,
not just to keep species from going extinct but preserve the habitats or in the act?
In the language of the act,
the ecosystems upon which they depend the romance of pig farming.
Come on.
Well,
what about the people who share the land with the animals protected under the Act?
Come on, pick
their opinions are a little more mixed.
Here's Rob Clavin who's been advocating for wolf recovery in eastern
Oregon since wolves returned to the state nearly 15 years ago.
The Endangered Species Act has been successful in making species not go extinct.
It hasn't been as good at getting species to biological
recovery but to the extent it's fallen short there.
It's not because the endangered Species Act is broken. It's because it's starving.
We need more protections for wildlife,
especially in an age of climate change and increasing development.
John Williams who chairs the wolf
committee for the Oregon Cattlemen's Association
also has his issues with the ES A,
the federal protection that wolves had here
was that successful in your mind?
No,
he says the act is a blunt instrument
that's been co opted by special interest groups.
The Sledgehammer of the Endangered Species Act has been
uh hijacked
by people with agendas
and, and that's
uh that's usually when we get bad management
looking at the bigger picture in the context.
Danella Miller is the fishery science manager
for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission
as a member of Yakima Nation. She's been working to save salmon for most of her life.
And for her, the endangered Species Act has a ton of promise,
but she's still waiting to see it. Realized
all of these species listed in the nineties in the Columbia River basin.
How many of those have ever have been restored?
But there have been successes under the endangered species Act.
Not so long ago, the bald eagle looked to be headed toward extinction
today.
Their numbers are close to 300,000.
I see bald eagles flying over my house here and I'm 23 miles from downtown Portland.
Uh I see him all the time.
And 20 years ago, we thought eagles were also gonna go extinct.
The Borax Lake chub, a tiny fish that lives only in a small lake in Oregon
was listed as endangered in 1980
but removed in 2020 after the land surrounding
its home was set aside for conservation.
It was the first time fish had made it off the endangered species list due to recovery
and it's not just birds, mammals and fish.
Nelson's Checker Mallow,
a flowering plant with bright pink blooms
native to Pacific Northwest Prairies staged a
remarkable comeback and was taken off the
list just this year because enough landowners
have uh provided private landowners have provided habitat for that plant.
But there
she is there
she
is.
And there's some cause for optimism for the
Northwest most high profile endangered species too.
Last month,
the US fish and wildlife service proposed killing
roughly 400,000 barred owls in Oregon and Washington
over the next 30 years.
While that might not be welcome. News, if you're a barred owl
studies have shown spotted owl populations have stabilized when
their larger and more aggressive counterparts are removed.
And talks continue around the removal of four large dams on the snake river.
Tribes and salmon advocates have been pushing to breach
the dams for years to improve prospects for salmon.
Though many in the inland northwest have
raised concerns about the loss of hydropower,
irrigation and shipping
and for the wolf,
the state now feels like the species has reached a
big enough population in Oregon to export some wolves.
Colorado voters approved a plan to reintroduce the species there
and Oregon will be sending up to 10 of its wolves to the state early next year.
But despite the successes and reasons for guarded optimism,
the ES A still has lots of room for improvement and it's
pretty good at keeping the species just hovering just above extinction,
but it's not terribly great at recovering species and
getting them to be a really healthy population again.
He said he'd like to see changes to the act that would prioritize action.
Well, before a species gets so close to extinction,
the moment where you'd get the most conservation done
is before something's listed, but when a listing is imminent.
So how do you kind of
impress upon folks, you have this urgency,
but you don't, you don't get locked into an inevitable path of having to list
and a more proactive approach to conservation will
only become more important as climate change.
And human development continue to increase. There's too much at stake
to allow these
to continue to decline
and not to invest in a long term recovery strategy.
Even if that sometimes makes for some difficult conversations,
I think it says something good about us if we can make
room on the landscape and in our hearts for all native wildlife,
not just to exist but to actually thrive
and especially those species that challenge us the most.