The Endangered Species Act is due for a checkup. And ecologists want to be in on it.
At a recent meeting in Madison, Wis., the Ecological Society of America hashed over a report aimed at improving the act. Members plan to present the recommendations to Congress this year.The main problem, according to the report, is that the act doesn't act fast enough to protect animals and plants. By the time a species gets on the endangered list, it is perilously close to extinction. And once a recovery plan has been developed, it takes too long to implement.
Since the Endangered Species Act was made law 20 years ago, five species have recovered and been taken off the list, says Ronald Carroll, a conservation ecologist at the University of Georgia in Athens. But seven others, including the dusky seaside sparrow and Bachman's warbler, have become extinct.
"We need to begin working long before species become threatened," said Carroll, who chairs the Ecological Society's ad hoc committee on the Endangered Species Act. "The act works like an emergency room in a hospital. We'd recommend preventive care instead."
Congress is scheduled to re-evaluate the act this year, as it does every five years, although the review probably won't happen until at least next spring.
The National Research Council in Washington - like the Ecological Society - also is looking at ways of improving the Endangered Species Act. The NRC report was commissioned by several members of Congress, including House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash. The report is expected by September 1994.
That may or may not be too late, depending on when Congress gets around to the act. "We're just hopeful our report will be useful," said David Policansky of the NRC.
Hundreds of species at risk of extinction have become protected under the act. The status of some species, such as the bald eagle and peregrine falcon, has even improved.
But at the same time, many more species are being added to the list of endangered or threatened species than are being removed from it.
Carroll said the act is basically sound. But he says that science has advanced so much in the past 20 years that the act's underlying principles are out-of-date.
Over the past two decades, scientists have realized the importance of preserving lots of different kinds of species, especially the ones that serve as indicators of the ecosystem's health.
These "keystone species," as they are sometimes called, may be obscure marine animals or tiny nitrogen-munching bacteria. But they're just as important as a gray whale or bald eagle, if not as flashy, scientists say.