An Evaluation of Species Recovery under the U.S. Endangered Species Act

Abstract

The U.S. Endangered Species Act (U.S. ESA) is one of the oldest pieces of legislation to protect endangered species. The bodies responsible for administering the U.S. ESA have published species Biennial Recovery Statuses (BRSs) in Reports to Congress on the Status of Endangered and Threatened Species. We found that expert assessments of species recovery trends match BRSs reasonably well; however, there appears to be a weak relationship between the BRSs and available data tracking species abundance and range trends. We aimed to establish whether the recovery trends of species examined were detectably associated with their threats, the general U.S. ESA tools, or recovery actions. We found positive associations between species recovery and two U.S. ESA tools – mean annual funding and peer-reviewed scientific information. However, correlations with other variables differ greatly depending on how recovery is defined. Species threats and recovery actions are also moderately related to their abundance and range trends.