Endangered Species | Introduction
An eighty-three-year-old man living in a remote mountain town in California heard strange noises upstairs in his bedroom and climbed the stairs to investigate. What he saw amazed him: Eight huge black birds had torn through the screen door and were wreaking havoc in his bedroom. Les Reid, the man whose home was broken into, said of his discovery, “I wasn’t mad, I was just astonished.”
The birds that Reid found in his home in 1999 were California condors, part of a flock of 29 birds that were bred in captivity and then reintroduced into their native habitat in the Los Padres National Forest in 1992 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Condors—which can live to be 80 years old—have existed in the southwest for 12,000 years, but habitat destruction, hunting, and DDT and lead poisoning depleted the condor population until there were only 27 left in 1987. In 1999, there are 162 birds alive, 113 in captivity, 29 free in California, and 20 more free in Arizona. Efforts to save endangered species like the condor attempt to stem the tide of extinctions that some scientists believe are occurring at an unprecedented rate in Earth’s history. The Global Biodiversity Assessment estimates that extinction threatens more than 31,000 plant and animal species today. Although scientists argue about the rate of extinction and its cause, most agree that the price of each extinction is a net loss of biodiversity, the rich variety of species that comprise the food chains which all species—including humans—depend on for survival.
Not all people agree on how to protect species in danger of extinction. Captive breeding and reintroduction pro- grams like the one that rescued the condor represent one side of the debate. Proponents of these programs maintain that habitat destruction necessitates breeding animals in zoos. Charles Hirshberg, writer for Life magazine, contends that zoos have “saved threatened animals . . . from extinction.” Proponents also maintain that reintroduction—when possible—helps restore the food chains that sustain all life. As Roger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, claims, “every living thing has some ecological role to play,” and, since vultures like the condor eat carrion, they eliminate waste and prevent disease. Those who support captive breeding of the condor maintain that their numbers were dwindling so fast—there were only nine individuals left in 1985—that if they weren’t captured and bred, they would go extinct. Thanks to captive breeding programs at the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the status of the condor has been changed by the USFWS from endangered to threatened.
Proponents of captive breeding and reintroduction programs support government regulations like the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973 because, they claim, the ESA has saved many species like the California condor from extinction. They contend that federal restrictions are the only way to mitigate what Garrett Hardin, professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, calls “the tragedy of the commons.” He maintains that “each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited.” Proponents argue that without the pressure of the ESA and other environmental restrictions, the private actions that have helped save endangered species would never have occurred because landowners— dedicated to their own self-interest—would have had no incentive to protect plants and animals at risk. But, under the threat of increased restrictions on land use, landowners have entered into voluntary agreements that protect the habitats of endangered species.
Opponents of captive breeding and reintroduction programs often make very different arguments in support of their opposition. On the one hand are people who also support government regulation as the best way to protect species, but who argue that the condor program drains money—more than 25 million dollars—away from more important efforts to save the birds. Opponents’ largest concern is that breeding and release efforts are a way of avoiding the more complex and pressing problem of preserving the condors’ native range which extends across most of North America. They also maintain that most reintroduced animals do not survive in the wild—60 percent of released condors have died, according to one study—and are more susceptible to disease because they lack genetic variability. In addition, opponents are concerned about the condors’ fitness for survival in the wild after captivity. They point to the destruction in Les Reid’s bedroom as evidence that reintroduced animals are too tame to avoid human contact and will therefore not survive on their own. Fiona Sunquist, a frequent contributor to International Wildlife, contends that real ecosystems have proven to be “not at all easy to restock even with a species [they] once held.”
Others oppose the condor breeding and release programs on very different grounds. While they too protest the cost, they maintain that the real cost of captive breeding and reintroduction programs is to private landowners. They claim that if endangered species such as reintroduced condors are found on their land, the government will restrict the use of that land under the Endangered Species Act. Such restrictions of land uses such as ranching and mining, they argue, cost private landowners money which the federal government does not reimburse. Robert J. Smith, scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, maintains that this “uncompensated taking of private property” is against the Constitution and threaten landowners’ civil rights. Opponents also maintain that such restrictions have had the unintended consequence of encouraging landowners to destroy prime habitat of endangered species in efforts to avoid the costly restrictions, actions that further harm endangered animals. They contend that private initiative would be more effective at saving species than would regulation.
The California condor is a symbol of the plight of endangered species everywhere, and the condor captive breeding and reintroduction program is the battleground on which people fight over how to save animals at risk. While Les Reid may not have been upset that the birds broke into his home, other residents of Pine Mountain Club are perhaps less forgiving. Nearly half of the twenty-nine birds released in the area are now making frequent trips to the town and have made themselves at home there, resting on lodge railings and ripping up deck furniture. Biologists are particularly concerned because such boldness around humans indicates a lack of healthy mistrust of people, an intrepidness found in many reintroduced animals that threatens their ability to survive on their own.
The decision about whether to use captive breeding and reintroduction programs to protect endangered and threatened animals like the condor is an important point of contention in the debate about endangered species. In Endangered Species: Opposing Viewpoints, the authors examine extinction and the efforts to prevent it in the following chapters: Is Extinction a Serious Problem? Are Efforts to Preserve Endangered Species Effective? Should Endangered Species Take Priority over Jobs, Development, and Property Rights? How Can Endangered Species Be Protected in Other Countries? In these chapters, the authors debate the responsibility humans have in preserving endangered species.
