I had planned to complete the series before New Year’s, but a couple of mild illnesses intervened. I intended to follow the first post in this series with a discussion of media narratives, tentatively titled “Standing in the Shadows of Arkansas . . .”, but with recent end of year stories highlighting the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, it seemed more sensible to address that subject first.

Delisting the ivorybill would have weakened the Endangered Species Act. The proposed rule was flawed both scientifically and from a policy perspective. The 2018 status review (the precursor to the delisting proposal) did not pass peer review; only one invited reviewer responded (in support of the delisting); the others remained silent. The delisting effort should have ended then and there.

The 23-species extinction package emerged at least in part due to political pressure from the Trump administration whose strategy included the apparent imposition of delisting quotas; in the case of the ivorybill, the move to delist disregarded but did not reverse the Service’s own position that the 2005 evidence from Arkansas was compelling; instead, it sought to impose a new evidentiary standard requiring “conclusive” documentation for the ivorybill (and by implication any other species of uncertain status). To maintain the Act’s integrity, a simple rule should apply: species should not be delisted when there’s scientific controversy.

Thus, I hope the Fish and Wildlife Service will take no further action on the ivorybill for years to come. Leaving the status of the species unchanged has minimal practical impact, little cost, and is virtually risk-free. There’s no way of knowing whether our paper influenced the Service’s decision, but our conclusion that delisting would be premature is sound and conservative, both scientifically and from a policy perspective. It should stand as a small ray of hope in an otherwise horrifying picture.

This article from The Guardian, “‘Grief is a rational response’: the 21 US species declared extinct this year” covers the delisting package (wisely) without mentioning the ivorybill, although it doesn’t fully examine the Act’s weaknesses or the threats to the Act itself. The article highlights lack of funding as perhaps the most important of these weaknesses, though funding is only one component of what had been a gradual erosion of the Act, something that accelerated in 2018.

The Associated Press has recently reported on resource allocation issues related to the Act. According to the AP, of $1.2 billion spent on endangered species in 2020, “almost half goes toward recovery of two types of fish: salmon and steelhead trout. Tens of millions of dollars go to other widely known animals including manatees, right whales, grizzly bears and spotted owls.” AP is a mainstream source; I won’t link to critiques from libertarian sources or pro-business orgs that have been attacking the ESA for years; these attacks sometimes weaponize constructive criticisms and have sometimes focused on the ivorybill.

Ivorybill skeptics raised objections to the moneys spent in the aftermath of the Arkansas ‘rediscovery’, though there was controversy over and apparent exaggeration of the actual amounts involved; this purported issue emerged again in some response to our publications. At best, concern over funding is overstated and somewhat misplaced when it comes to the ivorybill (as evidenced by the AP data). It appears self-interested in some cases – I’ve received countless fundraising emails emphasizing the extinction crisis, more than one mentioned the ivorybill after the delisting proposal went public. At worst, it’s a red-herring advanced by groups whose agenda is to weaken or repeal the Endangered Species Act.

The issues related to resource allocation are complex and multifaceted; I don’t have the expertise to address the AP story in depth, but I do know that charismatic species have always played an important role in conservation and conservation strategies, and in many cases, funds allocated to those species benefit entire ecosystems. This was certainly the case with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Recovery Plan as it relates to the management of Federal Lands within the historic range. But since completion of the Recovery Plan in 2010, the fieldwork has been almost exclusively (if not entirely) low-budget; and the government has spent little or no money on the species, with the notable exception of the delisting process.

While I’m hopeful that someone will obtain something conclusive soon, I’m acutely aware of both the intrinsic difficulties in collecting such evidence and the eternally moving quality of the evidentiary goalposts. In the absence of consensus about the ivorybill’s persistence or extinction, maintaining the status quo is the common-sense approach as well as the sound, scientific one.

It may be a more than a week before I get to the next installment, and I’ll have more on some other topics soon thereafter. Stay tuned.