Ever wonder if the Endangered Species Act works for marine mammals? OK, I hadn’t thought about it, but NewScientist’s (online only) Michael Le Page has checked into it:
The Guadalupe fur seal via Wikipedia
But no one had done an overall assessment of how well it has worked for the 60-odd marine mammals and turtles listed, including the Antillean manatee, the sei whale and Kemp’s ridley turtle. Now Abel Valdivia of the Center for Biological Diversity in California and colleagues have crunched the numbers for 31 populations of 19 different species.
The team concludes that 24 of these populations are recovering, five are stable and just two continue to decline. The recovering ones include the Guadalupe fur seal, the green sea turtle and the Pacific population of fin whales, which has increased from under 2000 to nearly 10,000. The recovering populations have all been listed as under threat for 20 years or more.
Naturally, if something works, the Trump Administration is ready to set it on fire. But if he can be removed from office in 2020, his replacement should be able to help guide any necessary refurbishments.
