Threatened and Endangered Species
Overview
The Endangered Species Program works to sustain and recover over a thousand populations of endangered, threatened, proposed, and candidate species in national parks. The programs mission is to reduce the risk of extinction of plants and animals in parks, and to restore species that have occurred in parks historically but have been lost due to human activities. The Park Service seeks to be proactive in determining the status of rare species and cooperating with other agencies to conserve declining species to avoid listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Every park provides information on the status of their listed species and the money spent on recovery and monitoring.
Parks in the Pacific West and the Southeast regions have the greatest number of threatened and endangered species. Haleakala and Everglades National Parks top the list in their regions. A link provides those parks with the most listed species (pdf size 19 KB). Not only do these areas have great biologic diversity, but many of these areas have been significantly affected by invasive non-native species and human development.
A summary of federally protected species in national parks is provided in
the table below (2006 data), and you can now search the NPS
ESA Database. You can get information about threatened and endangered
species by park, by species (using either the common or scientific name),
by amount spent, or by listing status. For summaries or recovery efforts
in each region, go to the issue of The
Endangered Species Bulletin (pdf size 2.2 MB) that is devoted to
the park service. For more details on the ESA, species that are listed
under the Act, or the park service program, see the contacts and links at the bottom of this page.
ESA
Categories |
Number
of Species |
Number
of Populations |
Endangered species | 267 |
640 |
Threatened species | 106 |
463 |
Experimental populations | 6 |
12 |
Delisted species | 7 |
9 |
Delisted and monitored species | 1 |
33 |
Candidate species | 65 |
98 |
Managed species | 9 |
10 |
Similarity of appearance species | 1 |
13 |
Species of concern | 3 |
4 |
Total |
465 |
1,282 |
Endangered Species Restoration Success in National Parks:
The federally listed endangered silverswords are the crown jewels of Hawaii’s native flora. Following the introduction of non-native goats, pigs, cattle, and mouflon sheep, silverswords suffered a severe decline. The park began its recovery efforts for the Mauna Loa silversword by fencing and removing alien ungulates, followed by propagation and outplanting of seedlings into protected sites. Since 2000, a total of 13,340 seedlings have been outplanted, exceeding the parks target of 12,500 seedlings! This year’s seedlings were outplanted by community and park volunteers and students from the Volcano Charter School led by Ane Bakutis, CESU Rare Plant Specialist and Tim Tunison, Chief of Resources Management.
Before a species, a subspecies, or a distinct vertebrate population is formally listed as threatened or endangered, it is scientifically evaluated according to established criteria. A species remains a candidate until the evaluation takes place. Once a candidate species has been officially proposed for consideration, it receives protection from the park service until a decision has been reached. Sometimes when a species is being restored, a population is declared experimental given greater management flexibility until it is established. At other times, the need for federal listing is unnecessary if management actions to secure the species are put in place by state and federal agencies.
Removing a species from the federal list is a public process than entails a scientific evaluation. After delisting, five years of monitoring is required to make sure that the threats do not resume.
Contacts and Links :
Biological Resource Managment Divsion, Ft. Collins, CO.
Zoology: Peter Dratch, Botany: Nancy BrianInformation about the Endangered Species Act
Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Home Page