Turns out, Feds Are Wasting Billions Protecting ‘Endangered’ Animals That Are Just Fine

The federal government has spent hundreds of millions in taxpayer money to protect species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that were never in danger of extinction, according to a Heritage Foundation report.

Robert Gordon, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Free Markets and Regulatory Reform, studied the Endangered Species Act and the federal bureaus in charge of administering and regulating it. Gordon released his report, which focuses on inconsistencies and waste in the listing and de-listing of species, Tuesday.

Former-President Richard Nixon signed the ESA into law in 1973, following the president’s push for stronger environmental protections the previous year. Nixon charged his “environmental awakening” for stronger environmental regulation in areas such as sewage, air and noise just two years after the Environmental Protection Agency’s founding.

Since the ESA’s enactment, 1,661 U.S. plants and animals have qualified for federal protection as either “threatened” or “endangered” — or close to extinction. Forty-five years later, slightly more than two percent, or 38 species, have been officially de-listed as “recovered.” About half of the officially “recovered” species where never actually in danger of extinction but placed on the list because of bad or missing data or taxonomic — the way animals are classified into species and subspecies, errors — according to Gordon . . .

Often when conducting preliminary research often serving to justify whether a species is listed or not, federal researchers miscount the actual number of animals in a population or species and reach a conclusion regularly off by a factor of 10 — sometimes more. (Read more from “Turns out, Feds Are Wasting Billions Protecting ‘Endangered’ Animals That Are Just Fine” HERE)

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