Keep Up the Fight Against Extinction

Forty-five years ago, Congress passed the U.S. Endangered Species Act — quietly, near-unanimously and with no concern that any American would ever object. Everyone wanted to avoid the extinction of wildlife, to save the likes of the California condor, the Florida panther and the North Atlantic right whale for their “esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.”

But the new law proved to be more sweeping than lawmakers realized, protecting as it does every sort and size of plant and animal on public and private lands. It wasn’t many years before small wild creatures (see: snail darter) got in the way of big human plans, and complaints began.