While growing up in California in the 1980s, Winifred Frick never saw a condor in the wild. The population of North America’s largest bird, Gymnogyps californianus, had dwindled to nearly zero by 1987 because so many were shot, poisoned or captured.
Today, Frick — now a conservation biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz — and her 14-year-old son can admire soaring condors while hiking along the Pacific coast. Nearly 350 of these majestic scavengers, whose wings can span nearly 3 meters, once again fly over parts of California and Arizona.
The condors’ happy ending is thanks in large part to the U.S. Endangered Species Act, or ESA, enacted on December 28, 1973. The act currently protects more than 2,300 species. This includes more than 900 plants and upwards of 160 marine species.
When it comes to preventing plants and animals from going extinct, the ESA is “one of the most powerful laws we have,” says Frick, who is also the chief scientist at Bat Conservation International, a nonprofit group based in Austin, Texas. She should know: 12 bat species fall under ESA’s protection, and more than half of North America’s 154 bat species are at risk of declining over the next 15 years, according to the group’s 2023 report. The ESA is “about protecting wildlife for our future generations,” Frick says.
2023-12-22 07:00:00
Article from www.sciencenews.org