June, 21 2016, 10:45am EDT
Analysis: 85 Percent of Continental U.S. Birds Protected by Endangered Species Act Have Increased or Stabilized Since Being Protected
Average Increase Was 624 Percent
WASHINGTON
Eighty-five percent of continental United States birds protected under the Endangered Species Act increased or stabilized their population size since being protected, according to a new report by the Center for Biological Diversity. The average population increase was 624 percent.
A Wild Success: A Systematic Review of Bird Recovery Under the Endangered Species Act is the first-ever study to examine the year-by-year population size of all 120 bird species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Drawing on more than 1,800 scientific population surveys, the analysis concludes that the Act has recovered imperiled birds at the rate and magnitude intended by its congressional creators and administrative overseers.
"The Endangered Species Act has been spectacularly successful for America's most imperiled birds," said Loyal Mehrhoff, the Center's endangered species recovery director. "From plovers on the East Coast, to warblers in the Great Lakes, terns in the Midwest, falcons in Texas, bald eagles in the Rocky Mountains, and towhees in California, the Endangered Species Act has rapidly and dramatically increased bird population sizes and put these birds on the road to full recovery."
Recovering species include California condors in California and Arizona (up 391 percent since 1968), whooping cranes in the central United States (up 923 percent since 1967), wood storks in the Southeast (up 61 percent since 1984), Kirtland's warblers in the Great Lakes (up 1,077 percent since 1971), California least terns (up 1,835 percent since 1970) and Puerto Rican parrots (up 354 percent since 1967).
Key findings of the report:
- 85 percent of continental U.S. birds increased their population size or stabilized since being protected under the Endangered Species Act.
- The average population increase was 624 percent.
- 61 percent of Pacific Island (Hawaii, Guam, Palau and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianna Islands) birds have increased their population size or stabilized since being protected under the Endangered Species Act. The weaker performance is due to lower funding levels, smaller population sizes at the time of Endangered Species Act listing, and more species being threatened by difficult to manage invasive predators and diseases.
- Few birds were expected to recover by 2015 because they have been protected under the Act for just 36 years on average, while their federal recovery plans estimate 63 years is needed.
- Birds are recovering at the rate expected by federal recovery plans.
- Endangered birds fared much better than unprotected birds, which on average declined 24 percent since 1974. This is because endangered birds are being actively managed, while common birds generally are not.
"The Endangered Species Act not only greatly increased bird population sizes, it benefited thousands of other species, people and entire ecosystems," said Mehrhoff. "In recovering imperiled birds, federal and state wildlife agencies cleaned up America's rivers and lakes, restored millions of acres of forest, kept development away from public beaches and greatly expanded the size of, and access to, public lands."
Among the birds in today's report:
California condor -- America's largest bird, with a wingspan of almost 10 feet, was protected as endangered in 1967 after DDT, lead poisoning and shootings pushed it to the brink of extinction. By 1968 only 55 birds survived in the wild. Due to intensive recovery work, by 2015, 270 birds were living in three wild populations -- two in California and one in the Grand Canyon -- and 167 were safe in captivity.
Whooping crane -- By the time America's tallest bird was protected as endangered in 1967, unregulated hunting and habitat destruction had crashed its population to just 43 individuals in the wild and seven captive birds. Intensive conservation efforts, including the designation and protection of critical habitat areas in Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, helped the population increase to 440 wild and 161 captive birds by 2014.
Wood stork -- The draining and damming of the Southeast's rivers, wetlands and swamps caused this large wading bird to decline from 20,000 pairs in the 1930s to only 29 nesting colonies when it was listed as endangered in1984. Due to habitat restoration and the purchasing of vital wetlands, the wood stork was downlisted to "threatened" status in 2014 and by 2015 had increased to more than 10,000 nesting pairs.
Read more in the report and about other Endangered Species Act successes here.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: 'It Is Not Antisemitic to Hold You Accountable'
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Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
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No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
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falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
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Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
"These students were shouting 'free Palestine,' that's all," said Suri. "They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police—the state police, the campus police, the city police—an army of police almost the size [of] the student group... many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students."
In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
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Holocaust Survivor Message to US Campus Protesters:
This survivor of the Holocaust is against Genocide in Gaza & conflating Jewishness with Zionism, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.
Your protests are so persistent, large and global that eventually the Western… pic.twitter.com/IDCH0NTO6m
— Double Down News (@DoubleDownNews) April 24, 2024
Kapos' comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found "plausibly" genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.
According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel's bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.
Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.
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Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that "the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they're doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust."
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Kapos predicted that "today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that."
"Today's marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it."
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Long before today's growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that "the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid" and that "the Israeli government's actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family's experiences under Hitlerism."
Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that "what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation" was "almost identical" to "what was done to the German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.
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"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits."
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"It is unforgivable that over 281 million people are suffering acute hunger while the world's richest continue to make extraordinary profits, including the same aerospace and defense corporations helping to fuel conflict, the main driver of hunger," said Farr. "The top 100 arms companies have hoarded nearly $600 billion in revenues just in 2022—enough to cover the U.N. global humanitarian appeal almost 13 times."
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Late last year, AFSC created an online database that allows users to see which companies are profiting from Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
WFP's global hunger report was released on the same day U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure containing tens of billions of dollars in additional military assistance for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
Reutersreported Thursday that Lockheed Martin and RTX—major arms manufacturers—"stand to profit" from the aid package's "$95 billion of mostly new weapons funding."
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Farr said Wednesday that "we cannot drastically change course without a global awakening."
"States must prioritize justice and peace over politics, and radically reform global peace and security bodies to protect international law rather than perpetuate impunity," said Farr. "Governments must also rehaul our global food system, tax the rich to invest in the public majority—the small farmers, workers, and vulnerable communities—and support green economies."
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