You would think that President Obama hailing from Hawaii would have an appreciation for native birds, animals and plants .............Of all the 50 states,no where is the loss of biodiversity more apparent, or on the minds of a larger segment of the general public, than in Hawaii................ Owing to its location as one of the most remote island chains in the world, Hawaii's flora and fauna represent some of the world's most unique life forms. ............... The few plants, animals and insects that reached these volcanic islands millions of years ago evolved in near-total isolation without threat from predatory animals or aggressive plants........... The result is highly specialized species that were, and still are, often limited to very distinct environments such as a lone island or, in many cases, a single mountain, valley or ridge.............. Hawaii's residents are all too familiar with their unfortunate distinction as the "extinction capital of the United States"........... There are no land mammals native to Hawaiian Islands; instead, mammals were introduced in two main ways............... Dogs, pigs and rats were brought by Polynesians........ Others were introduced by Europeans as gifts or trades with Hawaiian kings.............. “Goats and European hogs were brought in 1778, sheep in 1791 and cattle in 1793........... More recently, axis deer, California black tail deer, mule deer, antelope and mouflon sheep have been introduced to the islands for hunting game...............The activity of feral ungulates such as pigs, goats, and deer has resulted in extensive biodiversity loss...... Their grazing and rooting has resulted in damage of ground cover and consumption of native plants.....................So why then is our Harvard educated President allowing the ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT to be gutted by interpreting its wording so as to enable the USFW Service to not pursue rewilding of species across their historic range where suitable habitat exists???????????? Why is this President applying a narrow interpretation to this landmark conservation act to reduce it to a "mechanism that merely preserves representatives of a species, in essence "curating representatives of a species" to zoo-like" remnant populations?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/opinion/conservation-or-curation.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Conservation, or

 Curation?

By JOHN A. VUCETICH and MICHAEL
 PAUL NELSONAUG. 20, 2014

THE United States Fish
 and Wildlife Service — 

the main agency for the
 conservation of species —

 recently announced a
 new interpretation of the 

Endangered Species Act
 that severely limits its

 reach and retreats from
 the conservation ethic 

that healthy landscapes
depend on native 

plants and animals.

The law says that a species qualifies
 for protection

 if it is in danger of extinction 
“throughout all or a 

significant portion of its range.”
 A species does 

not need to be at risk of 
extinction everywhere

 it lives if it is endangered 
in a significant portion

 of its range. But what is 
“significant”? And how

 is “range” defined?

Now, under a policy that
 took effect July 31,

 the agency has provided
answers. The law’s 

protections, for practical
 purposes, will be

 applied only if a species
 is at risk of extinction

 in a vital (read, significant)
portion of its range

 where its loss would put
 the entire species at 

risk of extinction. And the
 concept of range no

 longer takes into account
its historical

 distribution but defines
the concept in terms 

of where the species is
found now.

This means that as long as a small, 

geographically isolated population 

remains viable, it won’t matter if the

 animal or plant in question has
disappeared 

across the vast swath of its former
 habitat.

 It won’t qualify for protection.

This interpretation threatens to
reduce

 the Endangered Species Act to a 

mechanism that merely preserves

 representatives of a species, like 

curating rare pieces in a museum. 

Also likely to suffer are efforts to

 protect or repopulate areas where

 endangered species once lived.

Imagine if this new approach had

 been in place when the bald eagle 

was being considered for protection

 in the 1970s. Arguably, the national

 bird might never have been listed as

 endangered in most of the lower 48 

states, even though it had virtually 

been extirpated by illegal hunting 

and the pesticide DDT. Why? Because

 a healthy population of bald eagles 

remained in Alaska and Canada.

Today, the return of the bald eagle is

 one of the great successes of the

 Endangered Species Act. The bird 

is flourishing in the very areas where

 it had been wiped out and reasserting

 its position in the ecological order that 

was disrupted by its absence. This was

 accomplished in part by using the 

uthority in the law to protect nesting 

sites and summer and winter roost

 sites and to reintroduce the bird i

nto its historical range.

(The Fish and Wildlife Service says

 it still would have protected the bald 

eagle under this new interpretation.

 Nevertheless, a case could have been 

made to withhold the law’s safeguards 

once the bird was no longer at risk of 

extinction outright.)

More recently, other threatened 

animals haven’t been so lucky.

In cases involving the gray wolf, 

wolverine and swift fox, the agency,

 employing the logic of this new policy

 to guide it, decided or proposed to 

remove or withhold protections for

 those animals after concluding there

 was no risk that they would go extinct. 

Never mind that they had vanished 

from much of the territory they once 

inhabited. (The gray wolf, which is in 

the administrative process of losing

 its protection under the law, had 

been lost from 85 percent of its range

 but securely inhabits the last 15

 percent.) The agency reasoned that

 there were enough of these animals

 left in their much-diminished range

 to survive.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story

Several years
ago, the Fish
and Wildlife
Service and
a sister agency,
 the National
Marine Fisheries
 Service, began
 developing a
uniform policy for interpreting that
 key phrase in the Endangered
Species Act — the 
line that says
 that a species must
be at risk “throughout
all or a significant
portion of its range”
to qualify for protection.
Uncertainty over the
meaning of that phrase
 and government decisions 

based on varying
interpretations 

had led to controversy
and litigation.

The two agencies call their
 reading 

of the law a “reasonable
 interpretation,”

 although they acknowledge
 that

 “there is no single best
 interpretation.”

 In fact, their reading is
 especially 

narrow and possibly
contrary to

 Congress’s intent when
 it passed 

one of the nation’s most
important 

conservation laws. A more
appropriate

 interpretation of range
would be those

 portions of a species’
historical

 distribution that are suitable
 or 

that can feasibly be made
 suitable,

 by mitigating or removing
the threats

 that had caused the species’
decline.

If the purpose of conservation
 is 

merely to preserve the fewest 

possible members of a species,

 then this new policy might be 

adequate. But this approach 

amounts to a retreat from two 

conservation aspirations that

 had long animated the law: first,

to mitigate harms that humans 

had perpetrated against certain 

species, such as severely reducing

 their geographic range; and second,

 to make it possible for species to 

return to landscapes where they 

had been extirpated. The idea was

 that healthy ecosystems depend 

on the presence of native species.

Since taking effect in 1973, the law

 has been instrumental in saving 

many species from extinction, 

including the California condor,

 American crocodile, whooping 

crane and black-footed ferret. 

Some 1,400 plants, animals and 

fish are now on the list.

This new approach does not

 mean that endangered species 

won’t still be saved. But it falls 

far short of the conservation

 aspirations the law once 

embodied. This new policy

 will result in a world for our 

children even more diminished

 than the one we live in.

John A. Vucetich is an ecologist 

at Michigan Technological 

University. Michael Paul Nelson

 is an environmental ethicist at 

Oregon State University.