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Report: Endangered Species Act Has Saved Freshwater Wildlife

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Congress is poised to weaken a law that has a remarkable track record preventing the extinction of endangered freshwater wildlife, American Rivers warned today with the release of the Endangered Species Act Freshwater Success Stories. The report profiles ten species that live in and around the water, whose prospects have brightened thanks to the protections they received under the Endangered Species Act. The report concludes that by conserving threatened or endangered species and the habitat on which they depend, we help protect the human environment as well.

"Without the Endangered Species Act, the species profiled in this report might be lost forever," said Andrew Fahlund, vice president for river protection and restoration at American Rivers. "We owe it to our children and grandchildren to preserve the fish, plants, and wildlife that make up our natural heritage."

Of the species at risk of extinction in the United States, the largest percentage are found in rivers, lakes, wetlands, and other freshwater ecosystems. In the three decades since President Nixon signed the Act into law, only 9 of the approximately 1,300 species marked for protection have fallen into extinction and many more are showing signs of improvement.

Highlights from the Freshwater Success Stories include:

Greenback cutthroat trout in Colorado

Gulf sturgeon in Mississippi's Pascagoula River

Brown pelicans in the southeastern United States

Steelhead trout in the Yakima River in Washington state

Shortnose sturgeon in the Hudson River in New York

Lahontan cutthroat trout along the Oregon/Nevada border

Spring Chinook salmon in Butte Creek in California

"In many cases, these threatened and endangered species alert us to the deteriorating condition of the environment around us," Fahlund said. "These stories demonstrate that, if anything, we should work to strengthen -- not weaken -- the Act."

To read the Endangered Species Act Freshwater Success Stories go to http://www.AmericanRivers.org/ ESA(under)Success(under)Stories(under)pdf .

http://www.usnewswire.com

Source: U.S. Newswire

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