Click below to view a specific act!

 

 

 

 

 

The Endangered Species Act

 

        The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was passed in the United States in 1973 to identify threatened and endangered species in the country and abroad and give them protection. This act is considered to be the most far-reaching environmental law ever created by some scientists and conservationists. Under the ESA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is required to list and identify species to add or remove from the act. After years of petitioning and a few lawsuits, the Center for Biological Diversity was finally able to get the USFWS to add the California Tiger Salamander populations from Santa Barbara, Sonoma County, and central California to the act in 2004.  

 

        A few months after the California Tiger Salamander’s addition to the act, USFWS designated “399,666 acres of critical habitat for the central California population, but

gutted almost half of the protected areas, leaving the final critical habitat designation at only 199,109 acres.” (Action Timeline, 2012) USFWS has added critical habitat for California Tiger Salamanders in Yolo, Solano, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Amador, Calaveras, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Alameda, Fresno, Tulare, Santa Clara, San Benito, Monterey, Kern and San Luis Obispo counties. However, with each designation they have decreased the total number of acres allotted by thousands

of acres to let development take place.

 

      However, the California Tiger Salamander is only considered threatened under the Federal ESA. The California Tiger Salamander is listed as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act in Sonoma County and Santa Barbara. “Under federal law, proposing to list a species as threatened and endangered confers little official protection to the species.” (Petition to the State of California Fish and Game Commission: Supporting Information for the California Tiger Salamander, 2004) According to the Center for Biological Biodiversity, “…laws have been insufficient to prevent past and ongoing losses of the limited habitat for the California Tiger

Salamander, and are unlikely to prevent further declines of the species… current federal, state and local management has been and will continue to be inadequate to ensure the survival and recovery of the California Tiger Salamander.” To summarize, the USFWS has continued to neglect the plight of the California Tiger Salamander and methods of federal management have proven to provide insufficient protection. The ESA requires a recovery plan for listed species with the goal of improving the status of the species to a point where it no longer needs to be on the ESA list. “A recovery plan includes scientific information about the species and provides criteria that help us to gauge whether downlisting or delisting the species is warranted.” (Henry, 2015)

 

 

 

 

 

  *Note: A final draft of the California Tiger Salamander Recovery Plan has not yet been                 posted. 

 

                     To view the draft, click here!   

 

                     Also, the ESA requires that recovery draft plans are open to the public

                     for review and comment! Email the USFWS Field Supervisor at:                                            sbcts_rp@fws.gov. to give your own thoughts!