Government agencies in the United States are obstructing native species restoration, creating regula

[Pantheraman]

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biaf116/8203279


"Efforts to restrict application of the ESA are not limited to the Executive Branch. To wit: Congress has long failed to provide the USFWS and NMFS with sufficient funds to administer the ESA (Eberhard et al. 2022). Moreover, Congress is currently considering numerous bills that would further restrict the ESA, such as the ESA Amendments Act of 2025 (H.R. 1897), which would repeal automatic protections for threatened species and hand over their management to states. These efforts have occurred even as research shows that four in five Americans support the ESA, and this number has not wavered for three decades (Vucetich et al. 2025).

Collectively, these actions amount to an abdication of federal leadership with regards to imperiled species conservation. In the absence of federal leadership, the obligation to conserve and restore native fauna falls to the states. However, state governments appear reluctant to adequately invest in species restoration—even for species that could be readily restored (e.g., habitat generalists)."

 

[Daktari JG]

I would say federal "leadership" is very strong. They are actively assaulting the environment
in every way possible. The truly sad part about it is how cheaply such transparent
destructive corruption is bought.

 

[Pantheraman]

I would say federal "leadership" is very strong. They are actively assaulting the environment
in every way possible. The truly sad part about it is how cheaply such transparent
destructive corruption is bought.

Yep. Many people's inability to recognize corruption is a significant part of the issue. And not just at the federal level, but it seems like people often have the idea that state game agencies can do no wrong. When, as mentioned in this piece, isn't the case.

I was, however, thinking that for a non-game species funding model, we could require people recreating on federal land to purchase the "America The Beautiful" pass and reduce the price from $80 to $45 to make it less financially burdensome. With the money generated from the passes, obviously, most of it would go to the public lands, but a portion of it could go towards species protected under the Endangered Species Act and non-game species under state management.