Endangered Species Act Battles for Its Own Survival : Wildlife: The law has produced a mixed record in its 20 years. Both sides plot strategy for showdown in Congress.

The sandy, grass-dotted hills look barren, hardly a place for a wildlife refuge. But look down and the sand belies the emptiness. It is scarred with myriad tracks of creatures that slither in and out of the sand and the larger animals that hunt them.

The Coachella Valley refuge, created to protect a fringe-toed lizard from extinction, is a product of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. But like the law, it is too young to be judged a success. Decades must pass before it is known whether the refuge can stave off the reptiles’ extinction.

After nearly 20 years, the Endangered Species Act has brought promise to many such creatures, but recovery to few, producing a record so mixed that its reauthorization is certain to spark one of the most divisive fights of the incoming Congress.

Business and agricultural groups charge that the law hurts the economy and infringes on private property rights. Environmental organizations counter that countless creatures would be extinct without it.

Both sides have mounted large coalitions and plotted strategies for the confrontation in Congress, expected to start early in 1993 and continue for a year and a half.

“The Endangered Species Act is not half as bad as its detractors claim and it’s twice as bad as its best defenders contend,” said Dennis Murphy, director of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology. “Anybody who thinks listing an organism as endangered is tantamount to protecting them is out of their minds.”

Expectations were high--in hindsight, much too high--when President Richard M. Nixon signed the act into law in 1973. From butterflies to panthers, wildlife dangling from the edge proved tough to rescue. The government wildlife agency in charge of their welfare rarely had enough money, nor did scientists have the answers.

Politics also got in the way. High-visibility animals such as the bald eagle and grizzly bear got most of the attention; lowly creatures with few advocates got none. Most efforts to prioritize funding for the most vulnerable plants and animals failed.

Used as a tool to stop development and dogged by controversy, the act gradually was framed as a contest between animals and humans. From the snail darter in Tennessee to the northern spotted owl in the Northwest, wildlife of uncertain value bred resentment when their interests collided with development and jobs.

“If you have to barbecue the Mojave ground squirrel to feed your family, barbecue the squirrel,” Republican Assemblywoman Kathleen M. Honeycutt of Bakersfield said, speaking of the act this year.

Such vitriol becomes more pronounced when the species stopping development are particularly unattractive. Consider that one of the candidates for the endangered species list is a cockroach. A fly in California also has been proposed for protected status.

Effectiveness Debated

The law is supposed to protect imperiled animals and plants in their natural environment. Animals in danger of extinction generally cannot be harmed or harassed or their natural surroundings destroyed unless measures are taken to compensate for the loss. Endangered plants on federal property or on private land must be protected when development requires a federal permit.

But the law’s effectiveness is open to debate.

On the positive side, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported in 1990 that 41% of the nearly 600 species then protected were either stable or increasing in number.

But the other side of the equation was grim: 38% of the species were declining, 2% were believed to be extinct and government did not know enough about the other 19% to say what their condition was.

Species faring well under the law tend to be those needing minimal space or those declining because of pesticides, hunting or some other factor that is relatively easy to correct. The bald eagle has made tremendous strides since the banning of DDT, a pesticide that causes thin eggshells.

But most species diminish because of loss of habitat, and the law has not substantially stemmed the development of their lands, particularly private property.

Only 295,966 acres of mostly private land across the country have been acquired for endangered species by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the primary enforcer of the act. Another 434,575 acres have been set aside, most of it owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The wildlife service also has declared 6.8 million acres of U.S. Forest Service and BLM property “critical habitat” for the threatened northern spotted owl, requiring the agencies to consult with wildlife officials before they alter the land.

So far, only five species on the endangered list have met the goals for complete recovery. Three kinds of birds on a Pacific Island revived after their habitat, destroyed during World War II, regenerated. A plant “recovered” after more of its kind were discovered. The fifth, the American alligator, bounced back largely because of a ban on hunting.

In one case, blunders by the Fish and Wildlife Service may have contributed to an extinction. The service spent nearly $3 million to buy Florida habitat for the endangered dusky seaside sparrow--and then neglected to manage the land properly. The last bird died in 1987.

“The 99% of the species that were at greatest risk because of habitat destruction have not been recovered, so that end, recovery, is a bit of a fraud,” Murphy said.

But two decades are not a lot of time for bringing back a species from the brink of extinction. Recovery is limited by how often animals produce offspring, and scientists know little about many species that are protected by the act except that their numbers are few.

Some undoubtedly will remain endangered because their hold on existence is so tenuous. The Hay’s spring amphipod is a tiny freshwater crustacean that lives only in a spring on the grounds of Washington’s National Zoo, making it intrinsically vulnerable.

Because recovery is so difficult for species nearing extinction, many advocate replacing the act with an endangered ecosystems law. By protecting landscapes instead of single species, such a law would shield many creatures while they are relatively plentiful.

But ecosystems--collections of interacting species and subspecies--are difficult to define. Preserving them would require knowledge about the species within them and their interactions with other wildlife.

“You can’t get three scientists in a room to agree on what an ecosystem is,” said John Fay, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who administers the listing of endangered species.

Fay and others believe that protecting individual species should be complemented with efforts to preserve lands that are rich in wildlife diversity. Indeed, environmental groups are using the act to protect important ecosystems. By getting the northern spotted owl declared as a threatened species, the groups are attempting to save the owl’s habitat, which tends to be forests more than 150 years old.

“This is not about owls,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “We are trying to save the Douglas fir forest of the Northwest, and it’s the forests that are in danger, not just the owl.”

Conserving habitat rather than species also implies a kind of triage, which many scientists are reluctant to undertake. Two patches of seemingly identical forests can harbor different species, and preserving one would not necessarily protect the wildlife in the other.

What if the species that vanished contained a cure for cancer? The yew tree, considered a “trash” tree that did not merit protection until recently, is now known to contain cancer-fighting properties.

The species that may not seem terribly valuable now also could turn out to have been a vital link in the wildlife chain that forms an ecosystem. How many rivets can be lost before the machine falls apart?

“From my perspective,” Fay said, “I am not willing to give up on a whole slew of species. . . . I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to save them all.”

Some would argue that cost is a good reason. In 1990, the U.S. inspector general estimated that it could cost up to $4.6 billion to recover the species that were listed as being endangered or threatened, or about $2 million for each species. By contrast, the report said, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has only about $8.4 million a year to spend on recovery, including research and habitat management.

Other government reports have sharply criticized the Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to follow set priorities. Species that are most imperiled and unique are supposed to get priority attention.

But they do not. Those with powerful advocates or most beloved by people tend to capture the most money. The best friend a species can have is an environmental group known for filing lawsuits.

“Why the hell is the biggest money controversy and most money being spent in Southern California on the gnatcatcher” when it is neither the most unique nor most imperiled creature living in the coastal sage scrub, asks Murphy, who supports the listing of the bird.

Because, he said, the National Resources Defense Council, a litigious environmental group, threatened to file a lawsuit against the federal government unless the little bird was listed.

Murphy suspects that one of the group’s motives, which the council denies, is to stop the spread of highways in Orange County. If the bird is listed, development of its habitat, the coastal sage scrub, will have to be sharply curtailed.

In 1990, the northern spotted owl topped the list for all federal and state expenditures, receiving $9.7 million. The owl is “threatened,” a classification that implies less imperilment than “endangered.”

“It is hard to justify that level of expenditure for a threatened species when there are a lot of endangered species out there,” Fay said.

Indeed, half of all government money went to 10 species, and 90% went to 10% of the species. The owl got the most money in part because its listing threatened jobs and timber industry profits.

But Fay said there is a reason for spending so much on some animals.

“If we’re going to be making decisions that have large economic effects we need to base them on something,” he said. “It makes sense that we may need to invest the money in developing the information . . . that produced those decisions.”

From a political perspective, Fay is correct.

Much of the opposition to the act stems from its perceived economic impact. Once a species is listed, it generally cannot be injured or its habitat destroyed without mitigation, regardless of the economic consequences.

Costly Compliance

The statistics, however, neither support critics’ contention that the law is halting project after project nor refute claims that development is largely unencumbered.

Of 1,989 federal projects affecting endangered species from 1987 to 1991, only 23 were rejected. The Fish and Wildlife Service required changes, such as relocating or rescheduling projects, to accommodate the species in 350 of the cases.

But this count does not include proposals that agencies decided to drop before consulting with the government.

“A lot of times you drop the project before you get to that because you know that is going to be a problem or a concern,” said Mark Delfs, forester for the U.S. Forest Service.

For private landowners, getting a permit to kill an endangered species or destroy its habitat is usually much more arduous than for government agencies.

Private landowners are required in most cases to create a habitat conservation plan, the compromise solution for resolving conflicts. These plans spell out how the wildlife losses will be mitigated, usually by setting aside property solely for the species.

But the plans can be expensive and time-consuming. Usually an attorney and a biological consultant are needed.

There also is no guarantee that a landowner who spends two years or longer getting a permit will not be required to go through the same process again if another animal on the property is listed.

In many cases, large sums are spent just to figure out how to develop and comply with the act. One scientist described the law as a kind of “gravy train for consultants.”

Nowhere has the clash between private property and endangered species been greater than in California, which leads the nation in endangered species because of its diverse geography and rapid development.

Of 13 habitat conservation plans approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service nationwide, eight were for development in California. Another 56 plans are in the works or awaiting permit--33 of them in California.

“We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars so far just in paying attorneys and biologists and to try to find a solution,” said Todd Olson, an attorney for a developer that wants to build on endangered Stephens’ kangaroo rat habitat in Riverside County. “None of that money was spent on acquiring habitat for endangered species.”

The developer’s land is in a 79,000-acre “study area” for the rat, an unfortunately named creature that actually belongs to the squirrel family. Part of this area will eventually become a rat preserve, the mitigation for allowing development on rat habitat elsewhere.

Of $10 million spent by Riverside County officials to protect the rat, half has gone to attorneys, biologists and administrators.

Northern California developer Richard Garlinghouse has had two projects in which he obtained an endangered species permit by setting aside land for the species. He estimated that the law raised his costs 1% to 5%.

He recouped his costs by charging higher prices for the homes.

“We’ll continue to pass them on until the consumer says: ‘Wait a minute. I can’t pay for this anymore,’ especially with an essential commodity like a house,” he said.

For small property owners, the law can be a nightmare. Noma Singer, 70, and her husband bought less than half an acre in Riverside County in 1988 only to discover this year that it is in the rat study area.

“I don’t want to kill everything off,” said the woman, who moved to California from Colorado in 1940. “I never even killed a prairie dog in Colorado, and you know how they are. But the point is, aren’t human beings just as important?”

But for all its faults, the law remains the best tool environmental activists have to save natural landscapes. Without it, many more species undoubtedly would be extinct by now.

“This is absolutely all we’ve got,” Murphy said.

A Look at the Law’s Effectiveness The U.S. Endangered Species Act, signed into law in 1973, is up for reauthorization by Congress. The law is supposed to protect animals, plants and insects from extinction and conserve their habitat. Here is a look at some of the effects of the act so far.

The Top 10 Spending List About 2% of the species protected by the act received half of the federal and state funds spent on endangered species in fiscal 1990. Here are the 10 species that commanded the most government money in that year.

SPECIES STATUS EXPENDITURE 1. Northern spotted owl Threatened $9.7 million 2. Least Bell’s vireo Endangered 9.1 million 3. Grizzly (brown) bear Threatened 5.9 million 4. Red-cockaded woodpecker Endangered 5.2 million 5. Florida panther Endangered 4.1 million 6. Desert tortoise* Threatened 4.1 million 7. Bald eagle (48 states)** Endangered 3.5 million 8. Ocelot Endangered 3.0 million 9. Jaguarundi*** Endangered 2.9 million 10. American peregrine falcon Endangered 2.9 million

* Mojave Desert population only. ** Listed as threatened in some states. *** Texas, Mexican subspecies.

Recovery Status of Species In 1990, this was how all the species protected by the act were faring: Declining: 37.7% Stable: 31.2% Unknown: 19.4% Improving: 9.8% Extinct: 1.9%

Progress Report: A Sampling As of June 30, 1991, 460 plant and animal species were listed as endangered and 155 as threatened. Here is a status report on some of them, including seven that have been removed from the list and are extinct.

Declared Extinct Santa Barbara song sparrow Dusky seaside sparrow Tecopa pupfish Blue pike (fish) Longjaw cisco (fish) Amistad gambusia (fish) Sampson’s pearly mussel

Believed Extinct Mariana mallard Palos Verdes blue butterfly Bachman’s warbler Bridled white-eye (bird) Ivory-billed woodpecker Little Marianas fruit bat Eastern cougar Scioto madtom (fish) San Marcos gambusia (fish) Tuberculed-blossom mussel Turgid-blossom pearly mussel Yellow-blossom pearly mussel Green-blossom pearly mussel Cuneate bidens (plant)

Improved Arctic peregrine falcon Tinian monarch (bird) Aleutian Canada goose Bald eagle Utah prairie dog Gray wolf Snail darter (fish) Apache trout Lahontan cutthroat trout Paiute cutthroat trout Greenback cutthroat trout

Declared Recovered Palau dove Palau fantail (bird) Palau owl Brown pelican* American alligator Rydberg milk-vetch (plant) * Recovered only in Southeast U.S. Source: The Wilderness Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service