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Endangered Species Act Essay

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The Impact of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 At the start of the 1900s, the American public was starting to see the effects of extinction. The bison population, for example, was rapidly declining, yet the public was oblivious. Thousands of different species were being killed for recreational purposes, museum exhibits, and clothing items. No one realized the threat because many thought animal numbers were large at the time. Shockingly, even naturalists were killing animals for different studies.
The species loss was not the only problem. Habitat loss was just as big. When large corporations wanted to expand their operations and setup new office buildings or large housing developments, there were no development restrictions holding them …show more content…

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973. The U.S. Supreme Court found that "the plain intent of Congress in enacting" the ESA "was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.” (biologicaldiversity.org) Countless extinctions of precious animals forced Congress to take a stand and prioritize the wellbeing of animals along with other important national issues like war and civil rights. Under the ESA, species were put on a list in one of four different categories: extinct, endangered, threatened, and delisted. To head the extensive project, Congress put the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in charge. The Wildlife Service immediately went to work to try to level the numbers of threatened animals. One of the first species on the list was the timber wolf, a Wisconsin native, who was listed as endangered because of overhunting due to the demand for its fur. In the first year of the ESA, more than 1,000 new species were added to the list, and through the years that number kept rising thanks to the efforts of wildlife activists, Congress, and the U.S Wildlife

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