Tell Congress: Stop Attacks on Endangered Species!

Stop Attacks on the Endangered Species Act and Imperiled Species

I am writing to urge you to be a champion for wildlife and biodiversity, and block all attacks on the Endangered Species Act as well as attacks on individual species under its protection. Despite the outstanding success of the Act at saving species from extinction, we are seeing more and more attacks on this extremely effective conservation law through congressional resolutions and riders repealing protections, and standalone bills to remove critical protections that have no basis in science. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the ESA, and we need it more than ever before. In the U.S., 41% of ecosystems are at risk of range-wide collapse, and 40% of animals and 36% of plants are at risk of extinction (https://www.natureserve.org/bif). The benefits of protecting our nation’s wildlife and biodiversity are felt everywhere, from urban neighborhoods to rural communities, through our economy with expanded outdoor recreation and tourism, to the positive effects that conserving biodiversity has on our health and well-being, agriculture and local ecology. America has a proud history of coming together to bring species back from the brink of extinction. In 1973, the Endangered Species Act passed unanimously in the Senate, and 355-4 in the House of Representatives. Conservation of the very life systems that we depend upon should have overwhelming bipartisan support. The challenges facing biodiversity today, and therefore humanity, are daunting, but we can build on our nation’s important conservation legacy by protecting and funding full implementation of the Endangered Species Act.