Ummmm...@lilhasselhoffer regarding the "non-help" of the endangered species act....how soon you forget about the enormous success of the American Alligator, nearly wiped out 4 decades ago, and now so plentiful in the wild from eastern Texas up to Arkansas, throughout all of Louisiana, Mississippi, South Alabama, Florida, coastal Georgia, the South Carolina LowCountry and coast, and coastal North Carolina that in nearly every one of those states there is a very generous hunting season now which doesn't even dent the population?
Or, the Bald Eagle, which now has multiple nesting mated pairs in every state except Hawaii (for obvious reasons, because it was never there), arising like a Phoenix from the ashes under its protection and the reduction/elimination of DDT which weakened eggs?
I'm also pro-nuclear, and againt the EPA as it is, and fairly against government involvement. But some things just work, like the Endangered Species act, and were the right thing to do.
Bullshit and propoganda, to be crass and direct.
The bald eagle population was on the decline due to use of the pesticide DDT. Once we stopped using it, completely unrelated to the ESA, the bald eagle population began to recover. Ironically, this was a success for the EPA.
The American Alligator also did not benefit from the ESA listing them as endangered. A concerted effort by conservationists was responsible for their captive breeding programs, with releases back into the wild. If the ESA hadn't existed they still would have made a comeback, largely due to breeding by people who now slaughter them for food and leather. They are functionally the nastiest cows, or perhaps the scaliest pigs, that humans have decided to preserve. Again, the ESA didn't directly prevent their extinction, people searching for a profit did. Heck, the ESA could only have protected their natural habitat. Given the vast range of habitats they live in, you could call most of the areas you cited protected by that standard. This would mean the ESA could entirely prevent any new construction, their only real power. The Department of Natural Resources is responsible for hunting and captive breeding programs.
You forgot the whales. That's the other big stick people use. The whales, whose population was very poorly tracked until recently, stopped being hunted en mass in the late 1800's, but the ESA listed them. Whenever they delisted whales they called that a triumph, despite literally doing nothing to help them.
What about the various other species we are just finding? How do you square they with a listing of endangered species? What about all of the species delisted because of poor counting?
If you'd like this expounded on, Penn & Teller did an excellent episode of Bullshit on the topic. While they gloss over a lot of the facts (it's only half an hour long), it's all there. The ESA is crap, because it doesn't do anything but restrict development. Conservationalists, entirely independent of the ESA, are who save endangered species.
Edit:
Care for some numbers? I would.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ndangered-species-act-percent-taken-off-list/
Of the species on the ESA 1.3% have been delisted. A greater number were removed due to poor counting, or being extinct before listing.
Your "successful" law is prohibiting land owners from developing property arbitrarily, encourage shoot-shovel-and-shutup, and it costs millions of dollar per year. I'd objectively call that a failure. I may despise the EPA, but even they show a better track record than the ESA.
Edit:
Minor mistakes corrected, and expounded on bald eagle.
