For most species, officially declaring them "endangered" makes them worse off: Ferraro, McIntosh, and Ospina (2007) find that … for a large majority of the species studied, listing under the [U.S. Endangered Species Act] has actually harmed the species’ chances of recovery.
I think you're being a little naive, seeing a list created by a political process and wondering "why so much politics". Everything the government does is political. Conservation is not the purpose, conservation is the product. The green lobby are the customers, and the coin is influence. Are the greens buying whales today? Tough luck for the snail darters.
Scientists motivated by pure conservation might exert influence on the process, but their priorities are not its priorities.
Phil: Thought about that too. To the extent that "compared to unlisted species that are otherwise similar except for listing status" is actually correct, the objection is invalid.
So the question becomes, to what extent is that bit is actually correct?
Wouldn't you be extremely surprised not to get this result?
If species listed, and species not listed, had equal chances of recovery, it would mean that the people who choose when to list a species as endangered performed randomly - that they were just throwing darts at a dartboard to pick species.
It seems much more likely than me that the people who spend their entire careers working in this field, and who consider each case in detail, have information available to them that the economists who wrote this meta-analysis did not consider!
Could it simply be that the listing is a good prediction of future woes for the species? With all of the political wrangling that surrounds it, a species needs to be on its last legs before it's added to the list. It's possible that being added to the list, regardless of any other effects, is an indicator that a species is likely to collapse within the next few generations.
What does it mean that the control group of species is "substantially identical?" That they, too, face potential extinction.Could it simply be that the listing is a good prediction of future woes for the species?
Who could expect that punishing people who host endangered species would increase their numbers? Now if we were to pay property owners who's land was the home of endangered species, we would have more information on their numbers and they would have a greatly increased chance for survival (as long as they remained on the list).
"the funds have a strongly skewed distribution towards those endangered species that are considered to have the best chance for recovery"
It may be more the human bias towards what's cuddly and cute - the so-called Bambi Effect.
Environmental groups, while well-meaning, are political critters that need to raise money. Hard to raise money with a picture of a banded kingsnake, say, as opposed to a violet hummingbird, even tho' the kingsnake may be more important to the environment overall. Who wants to give money for an evil-looking reptile as opposed to the beautiful hummingbird? These groups then go forward with this money and lobby for agency action on X or Y species, ignoring the others.
Also there's the issue of how enforcement has been carried out in the past. Instead of offering incentives - for example, grants towards preserving species with an eye towards fostering eco-tourism or exchanging prime habitat for the land rights elsewhere - the enforcement history has traditionally been strangely punitive. Altho' this is now changing, history has caused landowners to be very reluctant to work with the government.
I would like to see further information here. For example, other than some key people suspecting that achieving endangered status leads to depopulation, from the data presented we might also reason that the funds have a strongly skewed distribution towards those endangered species that are considered to have the best chance for recovery. All else being equal, it makes more sense to pour money into recovering a species with an 80% chance of recovery versus a species with a 10% chance of recovery.
Anecdotally I'll note that my biology teacher pounded this fact into us students my freshman year of college. His reasoning was a twist on the "shoot, shovel, and shut up" approach. When landowners (mainly companies that own the land) worry that a species might soon be on the endangered species list, they are more likely undertake action against that species before it gets on the list, at which point it will become a crime. But yes, counter-intuitive, and yes some environmental groups do more harm than good without knowing it.
I think you're being a little naive, seeing a list created by a political process and wondering "why so much politics". Everything the government does is political. Conservation is not the purpose, conservation is the product. The green lobby are the customers, and the coin is influence. Are the greens buying whales today? Tough luck for the snail darters.
Scientists motivated by pure conservation might exert influence on the process, but their priorities are not its priorities.
Phil: Thought about that too. To the extent that "compared to unlisted species that are otherwise similar except for listing status" is actually correct, the objection is invalid.
So the question becomes, to what extent is that bit is actually correct?
Wouldn't you be extremely surprised not to get this result?
If species listed, and species not listed, had equal chances of recovery, it would mean that the people who choose when to list a species as endangered performed randomly - that they were just throwing darts at a dartboard to pick species.
It seems much more likely than me that the people who spend their entire careers working in this field, and who consider each case in detail, have information available to them that the economists who wrote this meta-analysis did not consider!
Could it simply be that the listing is a good prediction of future woes for the species? With all of the political wrangling that surrounds it, a species needs to be on its last legs before it's added to the list. It's possible that being added to the list, regardless of any other effects, is an indicator that a species is likely to collapse within the next few generations.
What does it mean that the control group of species is "substantially identical?" That they, too, face potential extinction.Could it simply be that the listing is a good prediction of future woes for the species?
Who could expect that punishing people who host endangered species would increase their numbers? Now if we were to pay property owners who's land was the home of endangered species, we would have more information on their numbers and they would have a greatly increased chance for survival (as long as they remained on the list).
@Gordon
"the funds have a strongly skewed distribution towards those endangered species that are considered to have the best chance for recovery"
It may be more the human bias towards what's cuddly and cute - the so-called Bambi Effect.
Environmental groups, while well-meaning, are political critters that need to raise money. Hard to raise money with a picture of a banded kingsnake, say, as opposed to a violet hummingbird, even tho' the kingsnake may be more important to the environment overall. Who wants to give money for an evil-looking reptile as opposed to the beautiful hummingbird? These groups then go forward with this money and lobby for agency action on X or Y species, ignoring the others.
Also there's the issue of how enforcement has been carried out in the past. Instead of offering incentives - for example, grants towards preserving species with an eye towards fostering eco-tourism or exchanging prime habitat for the land rights elsewhere - the enforcement history has traditionally been strangely punitive. Altho' this is now changing, history has caused landowners to be very reluctant to work with the government.
I would like to see further information here. For example, other than some key people suspecting that achieving endangered status leads to depopulation, from the data presented we might also reason that the funds have a strongly skewed distribution towards those endangered species that are considered to have the best chance for recovery. All else being equal, it makes more sense to pour money into recovering a species with an 80% chance of recovery versus a species with a 10% chance of recovery.
Another argument for bio-diversity markets.
Anecdotally I'll note that my biology teacher pounded this fact into us students my freshman year of college. His reasoning was a twist on the "shoot, shovel, and shut up" approach. When landowners (mainly companies that own the land) worry that a species might soon be on the endangered species list, they are more likely undertake action against that species before it gets on the list, at which point it will become a crime. But yes, counter-intuitive, and yes some environmental groups do more harm than good without knowing it.