1 00:00:01,400 --> 00:00:06,680 Speaker 1: Despite the political backlash against it, The Endangered Species Act, 2 00:00:06,960 --> 00:00:11,440 Speaker 1: ensuring that other species have a basic right, the fundamental 3 00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:15,480 Speaker 1: right to exist, is one of America's very best ideas. 4 00:00:16,480 --> 00:00:38,520 Speaker 1: I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American West. How 5 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:46,200 Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act saved the West and America. Here's 6 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:51,040 Speaker 1: an inconvenient truth. Climate change is not the first time 7 00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:54,840 Speaker 1: humanity has participated in remaking the Earth. 8 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 2: Are resorted to a hail Mary to save it. 9 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:01,840 Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy three, more than half a century ago 10 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,319 Speaker 1: as I write this, the United States passed a law 11 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:08,640 Speaker 1: that is still on the short list of America's very 12 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:12,520 Speaker 1: best ideas. It was one of the crowning achievements of 13 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:16,280 Speaker 1: a decade of new laws designed to protect the American environment. 14 00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:21,840 Speaker 1: Written into policy by Richard Nixon's administration, the Endangered Species 15 00:01:21,959 --> 00:01:25,640 Speaker 1: Act of nineteen seventy three reversed one of the most 16 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:31,840 Speaker 1: disturbing histories of wildlife destruction of any modern nation. Back then, 17 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:37,360 Speaker 1: our Supreme Court called the Act the most comprehensive legislation 18 00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:43,560 Speaker 1: for endangered species that existed anywhere on Planet Earth. The 19 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:47,360 Speaker 1: Endangered Species Acts there were predecessors to the Grand Act 20 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:51,560 Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy three were expressions of something fundamental to 21 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:56,560 Speaker 1: the American story, namely, our country's long history of extending 22 00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:00,640 Speaker 1: rights to those who lacked them. Expanding the circle of 23 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:03,960 Speaker 1: those who are treated morally and with compassion is a 24 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:08,840 Speaker 1: history that reveals who we Americans are, or believe we are, 25 00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:12,640 Speaker 1: as a people. In other words, our great nineteen seventy 26 00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:16,280 Speaker 1: three act to save species other than our own was 27 00:02:16,320 --> 00:02:19,280 Speaker 1: in the tradition of those famous extensions of rights in 28 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:25,000 Speaker 1: our larger story, the Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 29 00:02:25,160 --> 00:02:29,320 Speaker 1: nineteenth century amendment giving women the right to vote, the 30 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:32,840 Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four Indian Citizenship Act. 31 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:35,760 Speaker 2: Today, the essay. 32 00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:39,120 Speaker 1: May be equally important for what it says about whether 33 00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:43,920 Speaker 1: we have the will to continue that tradition. As America's 34 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:50,360 Speaker 1: pre eminent conservation, President Theodore Roosevelt once observed, a great 35 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:56,320 Speaker 1: nation needs to understand itself. Understanding ourselves and our past 36 00:02:56,680 --> 00:03:00,240 Speaker 1: has been critical to many of the steps we've taken 37 00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:11,160 Speaker 1: as a nation. Americans have long been taught in our 38 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:13,600 Speaker 1: schools and by our culture to think of the United 39 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,919 Speaker 1: States as exceptional in the world, and there's no question 40 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:18,800 Speaker 1: that in many respects it is. 41 00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:20,799 Speaker 2: We've set a. 42 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:24,799 Speaker 1: Path for the modern world to follow in democracy and 43 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:30,200 Speaker 1: human rights of all kinds, in tolerance for dissent and nonconformity. 44 00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:34,639 Speaker 1: No country has invested in cutting edge science the way 45 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:39,160 Speaker 1: we have, with breakthroughs that have ended the ravages of diseases, 46 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:44,520 Speaker 1: sent us into space, and is untangling Earth's web of genetics. 47 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:49,920 Speaker 1: As Tuddy Roosevelt implied with that observation about great nations 48 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,880 Speaker 1: needing to understand themselves, our successes don't mean we ought 49 00:03:54,920 --> 00:03:58,800 Speaker 1: to try to write mistakes out of our past, though 50 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:06,120 Speaker 1: standing ourselves inevitably means confronting remorse about our history, about 51 00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,760 Speaker 1: the times we were wrong. And make no mistake, there 52 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:13,000 Speaker 1: were times in American history, and certainly in the story 53 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:17,120 Speaker 1: of the American West, when our citizens were cruelly indifferent, 54 00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:21,479 Speaker 1: deliberately myopic, and made decisions that left the future you 55 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 1: and I inhabit a poor place to live. Looking back 56 00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:31,359 Speaker 1: from our present vantage point, the nineteen sixties and nineteen 57 00:04:31,480 --> 00:04:35,640 Speaker 1: seventies can seem remote, a lifetime or at least half 58 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:39,200 Speaker 1: of one away. As a result, many of us no 59 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:43,040 Speaker 1: longer remember what was at stake for America's natural world 60 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:46,000 Speaker 1: back then. Even few of us have ever learned the 61 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,600 Speaker 1: full history of America's relationship with wildlife, which is a 62 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:53,159 Speaker 1: good bit like not knowing what the American Revolution or 63 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:57,560 Speaker 1: the Civil War were about, what was at stake in 64 00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:01,560 Speaker 1: those pivotal moments in time, as I've tried to make 65 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:06,520 Speaker 1: clear about the West, specifically in many of these podcast episodes. 66 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:10,640 Speaker 1: While creating the greatest nation in the world, the United 67 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:15,560 Speaker 1: States also engaged in a staggering and myopic destruction of 68 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:21,160 Speaker 1: our continent's wild animals, encouraged by religious notions that humans 69 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:25,239 Speaker 1: were exceptional compared to other creatures, that in a deity 70 00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:30,760 Speaker 1: created world, extinction was impossible anyway. Religion and free market 71 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:34,880 Speaker 1: capitalism taught us to treat America's wildlife as if animals 72 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:38,960 Speaker 1: were no different than grass or trees are mining ore. 73 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:43,160 Speaker 1: They were just another kind of commodity, natural resource to 74 00:05:43,279 --> 00:05:47,560 Speaker 1: exploit to make us rich. So the unfortunate truth is 75 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:51,919 Speaker 1: that as we spread across the continent, we Americans blithely 76 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:58,080 Speaker 1: obliterated one ancient species after another, and the one story 77 00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:02,600 Speaker 1: about that most of us still remain. By the eighteen eighties, 78 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:07,800 Speaker 1: wildlife exploitation as part of the American economy had reduced 79 00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:12,240 Speaker 1: some thirty million bison, to the point that fewer than 80 00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:18,839 Speaker 1: a thousand of these giant beasts remain alive. We recall 81 00:06:19,080 --> 00:06:23,080 Speaker 1: the buffalo collapse, but there are scores of other wildlife 82 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:27,800 Speaker 1: stories we no longer remember at all. In that same decade, 83 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:32,680 Speaker 1: when bison reached their nadir, a scientist named Frank Chapman, 84 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:38,279 Speaker 1: strolling the streets of Manhattan, counted five hundred forty two 85 00:06:38,839 --> 00:06:43,560 Speaker 1: New York women wearing hats adorned with the feathers of 86 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:48,960 Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty different species of wild American birds 87 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:53,200 Speaker 1: to supply that fashion market. In a single year in 88 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:58,120 Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties, the breeding plumes of one hundred ninety 89 00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:03,520 Speaker 1: three thousand American egrets and herons killed in their nesting 90 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:08,880 Speaker 1: rookeries by Southern market hunters went on sale in London's 91 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:10,680 Speaker 1: commercial sales. 92 00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:13,200 Speaker 2: Rooms in one week. 93 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:18,040 Speaker 1: A single week in eighteen eighty six, the skins of 94 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:29,040 Speaker 1: four hundred thousand American hummingbirds found buyers in those same rooms. 95 00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:36,840 Speaker 1: The remarkable diversity of wildlife in the West had long 96 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:41,600 Speaker 1: staggered observers, who left us marvelous descriptions of what the 97 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:45,239 Speaker 1: West was once like. One of my favorites is still 98 00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:49,679 Speaker 1: the journal of America's great nineteenth century naturalist, John James Ottoman, 99 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:53,400 Speaker 1: who saw the West in eighteen forty three and was 100 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:59,239 Speaker 1: completely gobsmacked. Back east, the woods were alive with bird song, 101 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:03,440 Speaker 1: mammals were secretive and hard to see, but in the 102 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,240 Speaker 1: wide open West, animals were insight constantly. 103 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:10,440 Speaker 2: Autobn's journal preserves. 104 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:14,720 Speaker 1: The astonishment so many felt about our version of the Serengetti, 105 00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:21,760 Speaker 1: and his passage is worth repeating. We passed some beautiful scenery, 106 00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:25,840 Speaker 1: and almost opposite had the pleasure of seeing five mountain 107 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:28,800 Speaker 1: rams or big horns. On the summit of a hill, 108 00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:32,480 Speaker 1: we saw what we supposed to be three grizzly bears, 109 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:35,760 Speaker 1: but could not be sure. We saw a wolf attempting 110 00:08:35,800 --> 00:08:38,920 Speaker 1: to climb a very steep bank of clay. On the 111 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:42,839 Speaker 1: opposite shore, another wolf was lying down on a sandbar 112 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:46,480 Speaker 1: like a dog. I forgot to say that last evening 113 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:49,480 Speaker 1: we saw a large herd of buffaloes. 114 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:51,160 Speaker 2: With many calves among them. 115 00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:54,760 Speaker 1: They were grazing quietly on a fine bit of prairie. 116 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:59,240 Speaker 1: They stared and then started at a handsome canter, producing 117 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:03,959 Speaker 1: a beautiful picturesque view. We have seen many elks swimming 118 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:09,200 Speaker 1: the river. These animals are abundant beyond belief hereabouts, And 119 00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:13,680 Speaker 1: if ever there was a country where wolves are surpassingly abundant, 120 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:18,120 Speaker 1: it is the one we now are in. It is 121 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:23,800 Speaker 1: impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of 122 00:09:23,880 --> 00:09:28,320 Speaker 1: these animals that exist even now and feed on these 123 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:36,079 Speaker 1: ocean like prairies Ottoman Road. Yet by nineteen hundred there 124 00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:40,840 Speaker 1: was very little of this wildlife spectacle left. How could 125 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:45,080 Speaker 1: that have been the story of Montana Territory market hunters 126 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:48,800 Speaker 1: in the eighteen seventies, one I've also told before is 127 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:53,640 Speaker 1: also worth repeating. In a single year in the eighteen seventies, 128 00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:56,920 Speaker 1: with prices high for the furs of all manner of 129 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:01,360 Speaker 1: Western animals, market hunter's Embozeman with visions only of money 130 00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:05,600 Speaker 1: shipped east the skins of seven thousand, seven hundred elk, 131 00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:10,880 Speaker 1: twenty two thousand deer, twelve thousand prong horns, two hundred 132 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:15,400 Speaker 1: big horned sheep then followed that with pelts from one thousand, 133 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:19,400 Speaker 1: six hundred eighty wolves, five hundred twenty coyotes, and two 134 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:22,880 Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five bears. It was a hall in 135 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:27,800 Speaker 1: wild animal parts that netted them sixty thousand dollars about 136 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,079 Speaker 1: one point six million today. 137 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:35,040 Speaker 2: That was the work of one year and one town. 138 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:40,080 Speaker 1: As historian Vernon Perrington once put it, the west of 139 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:45,119 Speaker 1: the Frontier era was a great barbecue to which everyone 140 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:48,440 Speaker 1: was invited and told they could eat everything in sight 141 00:10:48,760 --> 00:10:51,160 Speaker 1: as fast as they could stuff it in their mouths, 142 00:10:51,520 --> 00:10:56,440 Speaker 1: with no concern for who might come later, by which, 143 00:10:56,480 --> 00:11:01,840 Speaker 1: of course, he meant us that we had. Conservationist William T. 144 00:11:02,120 --> 00:11:07,679 Speaker 1: Hornaday to comment at the Frontiers conclusion, here is an 145 00:11:07,760 --> 00:11:12,160 Speaker 1: inexorable law of nature to which there are no exceptions. 146 00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:17,160 Speaker 1: No wild species of bird, mammal, reptile, or fish can 147 00:11:17,240 --> 00:11:27,320 Speaker 1: withstand exploitation for commercial purposes. Another famous American writer, Henry 148 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:31,240 Speaker 1: David Dureau, didn't live long enough to see bison almost 149 00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:35,280 Speaker 1: wiped out and passenger pigeons gone, but the roau felt 150 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:39,640 Speaker 1: personally injured just looking back on what he'd experienced. By 151 00:11:39,679 --> 00:11:42,319 Speaker 1: the mid nineteenth century, the number of creatures that had 152 00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:46,240 Speaker 1: disappeared are drastically declined. In New England was shocking to 153 00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:51,080 Speaker 1: anyone who paid attention. The Atlantic world's original penguins, the 154 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:55,320 Speaker 1: Great Ox, and yes, once there was a Northern Hemisphere penguin, 155 00:11:55,960 --> 00:12:01,560 Speaker 1: were already gone. Driven to extinction. Cranes and sand hill 156 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:06,160 Speaker 1: cranes were rarely, if ever seen anymore. The local inhabitants 157 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:10,520 Speaker 1: had pushed deer to scarcity and exterminated both wolves and 158 00:12:10,679 --> 00:12:16,240 Speaker 1: wild turkeys, passenger pigeons, trumpeter swans, an Eastern prairie chicken 159 00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:21,360 Speaker 1: called the heath end All had become rare reading about 160 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:25,200 Speaker 1: the colonial period's vast wildlife. Throw sat down to his 161 00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:29,240 Speaker 1: journal one morning in March of eighteen fifty seven, and, finally, 162 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:33,760 Speaker 1: grasping this fuller version of American history, realized that, in fact, 163 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:38,840 Speaker 1: the past does not remain in the past. He captured 164 00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:44,480 Speaker 1: that insight with this start line, I am that citizen 165 00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:49,360 Speaker 1: whom I pity. He lived in what he called at 166 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:53,000 Speaker 1: tamed and as it were, a masculated country. 167 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:55,400 Speaker 2: He realized this with a shock. 168 00:12:56,400 --> 00:13:00,680 Speaker 1: Long a student of phenology, the timing of natural events 169 00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:05,880 Speaker 1: like flowerings or bird migrations, Thireau lamented that I take 170 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,320 Speaker 1: infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, 171 00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:12,640 Speaker 1: for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, 172 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:15,920 Speaker 1: and then to my chagrin, I hear that it is 173 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,480 Speaker 1: but an imperfect copy that I possess, and have read 174 00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:23,160 Speaker 1: that my ancestors have torn out many of the first 175 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:28,160 Speaker 1: leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. 176 00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:32,640 Speaker 1: It was something like attending a symphony and discovering that 177 00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:37,880 Speaker 1: half the instruments were missing, he thought, or looking into 178 00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:42,800 Speaker 1: the night sky and finding that familiar consolations had vanished. 179 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:47,920 Speaker 1: Thoro knew how to sum up something like this. I 180 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:52,679 Speaker 1: should not like to think some demigod had come before 181 00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:56,120 Speaker 1: me and picked out some of the best of the stars, 182 00:13:56,400 --> 00:14:00,880 Speaker 1: he wrote. I wish to know an entire heaven and 183 00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:11,400 Speaker 1: an entire earth. When your citizens are so nearsighted that 184 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:14,199 Speaker 1: the dollar sign is all they can see, it's not 185 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:18,880 Speaker 1: hard to understand why a similar fate could befall so 186 00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:23,240 Speaker 1: many American species and so many of us in the 187 00:14:23,280 --> 00:14:27,480 Speaker 1: aftermath of the Frontier. Another story that left all of 188 00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:31,720 Speaker 1: us alive now the poor is this one. Passenger pigeons 189 00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:35,560 Speaker 1: had drived in America for fifteen million years, in multiple 190 00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:36,960 Speaker 1: billions of birds. 191 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:40,040 Speaker 2: As late as the eighteen eighties. 192 00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:43,520 Speaker 1: Passenger pigeons were still trying to nest in Midwestern states 193 00:14:43,560 --> 00:14:47,320 Speaker 1: like Wisconsin and Michigan, but under assault from citizens who 194 00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:50,320 Speaker 1: spent no time thinking about those of us alive in 195 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:54,960 Speaker 1: the twenty first century, the last passenger pigeon nestings, like 196 00:14:55,040 --> 00:14:59,400 Speaker 1: one in Sparta, Wisconsin, that covered eight hundred and fifty 197 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:05,320 Speaker 1: square miles, were winking out fast. One hundred thousand market 198 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:10,080 Speaker 1: hunters descended on one of these last Midwestern nestings, and, 199 00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:14,120 Speaker 1: as one observer put it, the slaughter was terrible, beyond 200 00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:20,280 Speaker 1: any description. The scene was truly pitiable. By nineteen oh two, 201 00:15:20,960 --> 00:15:23,400 Speaker 1: wild pigeons were gone in America. 202 00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:25,800 Speaker 2: The last passenger. 203 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:30,800 Speaker 1: Pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in nineteen fourteen. My 204 00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:36,200 Speaker 1: grandparents were alive then, but I missed seeing passenger pigeon 205 00:15:36,200 --> 00:15:42,960 Speaker 1: flights by several decades. Somehow, these ancient birds were unable 206 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:48,040 Speaker 1: to survive a mere three centuries of us. A truth 207 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:53,080 Speaker 1: about our history, about understanding our story, is that in 208 00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:58,000 Speaker 1: our ability to kill animals en mass we were unmatched 209 00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:04,040 Speaker 1: by any other city in the world. There were survivals 210 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:07,440 Speaker 1: and rescues. Of course, some of them, like ill or 211 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:12,760 Speaker 1: wild turkeys or pronghorns, grand triumphs of our vision and efforts. 212 00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:16,000 Speaker 1: Although to be truthful, most of the creatures we worked 213 00:16:16,000 --> 00:16:21,280 Speaker 1: to save were game animals people wanted to keep hunting. Indeed, 214 00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:25,560 Speaker 1: the endangered Species Act was a hail mary, largely for 215 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:30,960 Speaker 1: animals we had no interest in hunting. Often, creatures regarded 216 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:36,040 Speaker 1: as pests are species that were collateral damage in making 217 00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:40,920 Speaker 1: the conton and its resources pay off through their own 218 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:45,800 Speaker 1: agency and the heroic efforts of native people, conservationists, and 219 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:52,440 Speaker 1: America's zoos. Some of these bison, various wolves, predatory birds, 220 00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:59,280 Speaker 1: scavengers like California condors, even grizzly bears survived, but others, 221 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:04,720 Speaker 1: the great awk, passenger pigeons, along with America's most colorful 222 00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:08,280 Speaker 1: bird of all, the parent known as the Carolina parakeet, 223 00:17:08,720 --> 00:17:17,320 Speaker 1: We are raised forever. Looking back on this kind of 224 00:17:17,359 --> 00:17:23,000 Speaker 1: American history, a twenty eighteen National Academy of Sciences study 225 00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:28,080 Speaker 1: called our wildlife losses since the Colonial Age, with their 226 00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:34,560 Speaker 1: sacrifice of half a million years of distinctive cumulative genetics, 227 00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:39,680 Speaker 1: close to a worst case scenario. In eighteen eighty nine, 228 00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:45,280 Speaker 1: the Smithsonian had listed just four American species it thought extinct, 229 00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:50,399 Speaker 1: the great awk, the labrador duck, the northern elephant seal, 230 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:55,359 Speaker 1: and the stellar's sea count. A mere forty years later, 231 00:17:55,760 --> 00:17:59,840 Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, that list had more than double 232 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:04,200 Speaker 1: and was growing. By this time, The threat of extinction 233 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:08,879 Speaker 1: seemed to get our attention, though, because it included the 234 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:14,280 Speaker 1: fates of several of our most charismatic birds. The species 235 00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:17,520 Speaker 1: of eastern prairie chicken the heath end was down to 236 00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:22,399 Speaker 1: one last individual in the nineteen thirties, a male, but 237 00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:26,320 Speaker 1: the last of his kind, booming Ben he was called, 238 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:30,960 Speaker 1: was never seen again after March the eleventh, nineteen thirty two. 239 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,800 Speaker 1: By then, our giant ivorybille woodpeckers, our candidate for the 240 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:39,240 Speaker 1: largest woodpecker in the world, had dwindled to a mere 241 00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:44,640 Speaker 1: seven pairs in Louisiana, nesting in an old growth forest 242 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:50,040 Speaker 1: that loggers were about to take down. Trumpeter swans, our 243 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:54,880 Speaker 1: largest continental swans, were also on the cliff edge of extinction. 244 00:18:55,720 --> 00:19:00,240 Speaker 1: Ten million year old sand hill cranes were down to 245 00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:04,760 Speaker 1: little more than a thousand birds left, with only fifteen 246 00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:09,840 Speaker 1: breeding pairs in Wisconsin, and a nineteen thirty five count 247 00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:16,159 Speaker 1: indicated only sixteen giant white whooping cranes remaining on Earth. 248 00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:20,840 Speaker 2: What really moved the needle, though, was the shocking. 249 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:26,160 Speaker 1: Decline of our national symbol, the bald eagle, regarded by 250 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:31,879 Speaker 1: livestock interest as predatory threats. Both bald and golden eagles 251 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,560 Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties were on a short road to 252 00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:41,800 Speaker 1: entire loss. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, passed 253 00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:45,920 Speaker 1: by Congress in nineteen forty to save the birds most 254 00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:50,640 Speaker 1: closely identified with the country itself, became the first step 255 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:56,359 Speaker 1: in saving non game wildlife in America. It was also 256 00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 1: the beginning of what became the Endangered. 257 00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:05,760 Speaker 2: Species Act of nineteen seventy three. 258 00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:10,960 Speaker 1: That monumental legislation began to assume its modern look in 259 00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:15,840 Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties as part of environmental regulations that famously 260 00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:20,440 Speaker 1: cleaned the country's air and water and set aside wilderness 261 00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:27,080 Speaker 1: and wild rivers. Inspired by the nineteen forty Eagle Act 262 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:30,600 Speaker 1: and by an elder Leopold idea that was now being 263 00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:36,000 Speaker 1: called biocentrism, a philosophy of broadening moral treatment to life 264 00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:41,159 Speaker 1: and nature. In nineteen sixty five, Interior Secretary Stuart Udall 265 00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:46,000 Speaker 1: compiled a list of species scientists believed in danger of 266 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:50,639 Speaker 1: disappearing for the original nineteen sixty six law, Fish and 267 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:56,800 Speaker 1: Wildlife came up with eighty three endangered mammals, birds, and reptiles, 268 00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,400 Speaker 1: and increased since the nineteen thirties. 269 00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:01,800 Speaker 2: That stumped on Judah and his staff. 270 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:06,920 Speaker 1: Three years later, in nineteen sixty nine, a second law 271 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:13,720 Speaker 1: added fish, crustaceans, and invertebrates to those lists. One of 272 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:17,760 Speaker 1: the aspects of our history we need to remember and 273 00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:22,680 Speaker 1: remember well, is that half a century ago, saving the 274 00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:28,440 Speaker 1: world was not political. It was Democrat Lyndon Johnson's administration 275 00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:32,119 Speaker 1: that passed the Act of nineteen sixty six and the 276 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:37,160 Speaker 1: administration of Republican President Richard Nixon that legislated the broader 277 00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:41,439 Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine Act. No doubt, it's a shock for 278 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,440 Speaker 1: many in our time to realize that it was Nixon 279 00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:49,160 Speaker 1: and the Republicans who delivered the rationale for the culminating 280 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:54,080 Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act of nineteen seventy three. This is the 281 00:21:54,320 --> 00:22:00,359 Speaker 1: environmental awakening Nixon told the public. Wild things constitute a 282 00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:05,560 Speaker 1: treasure to be protected and cherished for all time. They 283 00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:10,640 Speaker 1: possess a higher right to exist, not granted to them 284 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:15,239 Speaker 1: by man and not his to take away. As a 285 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,879 Speaker 1: full indication of the bipartisan nature of this crusade to 286 00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:23,560 Speaker 1: save American animals from disappearing, it was a Democrat, Senator 287 00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:27,640 Speaker 1: Pete Williams of New Jersey who introduced the Grand Esa 288 00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:32,280 Speaker 1: and Congress, and astonishing as it might seem to us now, 289 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:35,359 Speaker 1: living in a time when the parties tossed terms like 290 00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:40,280 Speaker 1: fascist and left wing lunatics at one another. Just fifty 291 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:45,120 Speaker 1: years ago, this epic law for saving America's wild species 292 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:50,879 Speaker 1: passed by ninety two to zero in the Senate and 293 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:55,520 Speaker 1: three hundred and ninety to twelve in the House of Representatives. 294 00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:05,760 Speaker 1: If the ESA's most significant charge was that other species 295 00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:08,920 Speaker 1: had the right to exist and the threat of their 296 00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:12,919 Speaker 1: extinction must be ended, its second grand mission was the 297 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:18,840 Speaker 1: recovery of threatened animals back to health. Restoring bald eagles, 298 00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:23,760 Speaker 1: pebrine falcons, California condors, and gray wolves wasn't just some 299 00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:28,280 Speaker 1: kind of government theater to impress the public, but recovery 300 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,360 Speaker 1: did turn out to be complex. Recovery of a threatened 301 00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:35,280 Speaker 1: species is not just about the total number of animals 302 00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:39,479 Speaker 1: or even the number of breeding pairs. It's also about 303 00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,359 Speaker 1: continuing threats, and it's about the. 304 00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:43,520 Speaker 2: Health of the habitat. 305 00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:48,840 Speaker 1: The restoration provisions in the ESA required protection not just 306 00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:54,359 Speaker 1: of endangered species, but of the habitats their health required. 307 00:23:55,400 --> 00:24:00,960 Speaker 1: That complexity meant careful science, because the legal effectiveness of 308 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:06,920 Speaker 1: these provisions derived from the laws charged that listing endangered species, 309 00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,760 Speaker 1: recovering them to health, and then delisting them so they 310 00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:16,520 Speaker 1: could be managed by the States has to rely entirely 311 00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:21,360 Speaker 1: on the very best science available. Relying on best science 312 00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,880 Speaker 1: meant placing other species health in a position where setting 313 00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:33,440 Speaker 1: human economic considerations aside was legally possible, and that provision 314 00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:38,960 Speaker 1: soon enough attracted the hostility of opponents who continued to 315 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:44,120 Speaker 1: believe in human exceptionalism that our affairs should always take 316 00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:48,480 Speaker 1: precedence over those of any other species. A series of 317 00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:53,520 Speaker 1: controversies over snail darters, northern spotted owls, and for the last. 318 00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:55,560 Speaker 2: Thirty years over wolf recovery. 319 00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,680 Speaker 1: Has seen at least some economic interest in their political 320 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:04,200 Speaker 1: advocates fi the ESA and push back against it. That 321 00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:09,080 Speaker 1: pushback has produced a variety of compromises in the Endangered 322 00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:13,240 Speaker 1: Species Act. One example in gray wolf recovery, used first 323 00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:16,640 Speaker 1: in the Northern Rocky Mountain States and now in Colorado, 324 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:22,600 Speaker 1: is the compromise that has given US experimental non essential 325 00:25:23,080 --> 00:25:29,119 Speaker 1: endangered populations, allowing ranchers and wildlife services agents to kill 326 00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:40,200 Speaker 1: recovering gray wolves whenever they're perceived as economic threats. Starting 327 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:44,359 Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. Then, growing conservative anger against the 328 00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:51,920 Speaker 1: ESA helped transform environmentalism itself into a partisan issue. Many 329 00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:56,280 Speaker 1: Republicans have convinced themselves that protecting a species' right to 330 00:25:56,359 --> 00:26:02,400 Speaker 1: exist constitutes an existential threat to the human economy. Today, 331 00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:07,560 Speaker 1: forty one states joined the federal government in protecting endangered species. 332 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,919 Speaker 1: The ones that don't are commonly the most conservative of 333 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:17,080 Speaker 1: our states. Democrats remain supporters of the ESA. The Obama 334 00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:21,640 Speaker 1: administration in fact listed some three hundred and forty additional 335 00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:26,760 Speaker 1: endangered species. By contrast, Trump's first term added a grand 336 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,720 Speaker 1: total of twenty, then hurried the listing, as with gray 337 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:36,240 Speaker 1: wolves in the Upper Midwest, to state management, with sometimes 338 00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:41,240 Speaker 1: chaotic results. Efforts to list the species as endangered now 339 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,720 Speaker 1: takes a decade and sometimes much more, and declaring a 340 00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,440 Speaker 1: species recovered and turning its management over to the states 341 00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:53,920 Speaker 1: can be far less science than it is politics. Those 342 00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,760 Speaker 1: politics are pretty strikingly evident today in places like Montana, Wyoming, 343 00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:02,280 Speaker 1: and Idaho, where the health and numbers of gray wolves 344 00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:06,760 Speaker 1: under state management can sometimes depend entirely on which political 345 00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,320 Speaker 1: party has the power to impose its will and that 346 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:15,280 Speaker 1: of its supporters on wildlife decisions, which creates one hell 347 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:19,679 Speaker 1: of an epic irony. The party whose president signed the 348 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:24,199 Speaker 1: essay into law half a century ago now appears to 349 00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,280 Speaker 1: wish that the Endangered Species Act had never been passed, 350 00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,439 Speaker 1: and that the best thing to do with the history 351 00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:33,639 Speaker 1: that produced the essay is to ban it from the 352 00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:39,440 Speaker 1: Smithsonian and from National part historical markers. It now wants 353 00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,680 Speaker 1: to insert human economic results into decisions about whether a 354 00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,919 Speaker 1: species can be listed. It wants to make it harder 355 00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,320 Speaker 1: to list a species and easier to remove one from protection. 356 00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:55,800 Speaker 1: And following the pronouncement that climate change is a possible hoax, 357 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:59,040 Speaker 1: the party that signed off on the ESA in nineteen 358 00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:02,560 Speaker 1: seventy three now wants to ban considering the effects of 359 00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,760 Speaker 1: climate change on species health. That means that habitats to 360 00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:12,120 Speaker 1: which some species are already relocating would not gain Endangered 361 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:19,080 Speaker 1: Species Act habitat protections. Encouraged by recent colossal bioscience work 362 00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:23,360 Speaker 1: with dire wolves and the possibilities for recovering extinct species 363 00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:29,200 Speaker 1: through genetic editing, some in the present administration believe there's 364 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,040 Speaker 1: no need any more for an Endangered Species Act at all. 365 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,720 Speaker 1: In fact, the Republicans share of the House Natural Resources 366 00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:40,280 Speaker 1: Committee recently proclaimed that the Endangered Species Act has now 367 00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:45,240 Speaker 1: become an outdated part of our history. To buttress disposition, 368 00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:48,880 Speaker 1: they've even argued that the success rate of the essay 369 00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,640 Speaker 1: has been a dismal failure. 370 00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,959 Speaker 2: In truth, almost all the species. 371 00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,800 Speaker 1: That have gone on the Endangered Species, threatened or Endangered 372 00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,640 Speaker 1: list have been saved from it distinction and are still 373 00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:06,640 Speaker 1: with US today. One thousand, six hundred and eighteen US species, 374 00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,440 Speaker 1: and that number now includes plants, are on the threatened 375 00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,680 Speaker 1: endangered list. Here in the States is the US Fish 376 00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:18,400 Speaker 1: and Wildlife Service that protects threatened and endangered species, but 377 00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:22,480 Speaker 1: the US is also interested in global species health, and 378 00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:28,520 Speaker 1: here the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, another Nixon 379 00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,760 Speaker 1: creation from half a century ago, now oversees the health 380 00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:38,120 Speaker 1: of sixty five global species. Over the last fifty three years, 381 00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:43,080 Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act has recovered fifty four of America's 382 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:47,520 Speaker 1: native species. Most famously are bald eagles, of course, but 383 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:53,960 Speaker 1: also peregrine falcons, California condors, blackfooted ferrets, and gray wolves. 384 00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,840 Speaker 1: According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, 385 00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:03,520 Speaker 1: US animals and plants significantly better than those almost anywhere 386 00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:14,360 Speaker 1: else in the world because of our Endangered Species Act. 387 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:21,160 Speaker 1: California condors offer us an example of how complicated it 388 00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:26,280 Speaker 1: can be to save a species in peril. As scavengers, 389 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:31,920 Speaker 1: condors tend to magnify whatever problems exist in the ecologies 390 00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:36,440 Speaker 1: they inhabit. The giant birds once ranged across all of 391 00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:41,000 Speaker 1: North America amongst all the wildlife diversity and predators of 392 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:46,520 Speaker 1: the Pleistocene, only narrowing their range to washed up carrion 393 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:52,320 Speaker 1: on the Pacific Coast with the Great Extinction Crash of twelve. 394 00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:53,320 Speaker 2: Thousand years ago. 395 00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:59,840 Speaker 1: With their soaring habits nearly ten foot wingspans and naked heads, 396 00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,160 Speaker 1: condors have a presence no. 397 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:03,400 Speaker 2: Other bird can match. 398 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,719 Speaker 1: In the early twentieth century, when the ever pessimistic William 399 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:13,120 Speaker 1: Hornaday was assembling the material for his book Our Vanishing Wildlife, 400 00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:17,480 Speaker 1: he asked ecologist Joseph Brenell for what he assumed would 401 00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:22,800 Speaker 1: be the eulogy for California condors. But Grenelle was more optimistic, 402 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:28,120 Speaker 1: and nineteen twelve, condors were still fairly common, he said, 403 00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:36,360 Speaker 1: in Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Kern Counties. However, 404 00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:43,920 Speaker 1: Grenell's hopes for condors came before seeheart. Miriam's Biological Survey 405 00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:49,840 Speaker 1: began to broadcast poison baits to wipe out wolves and coyotes. 406 00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:55,640 Speaker 1: Burea poisoners told themselves that condors would just vomit up 407 00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:59,680 Speaker 1: poison baits, but in fact the big birds were taken 408 00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,440 Speaker 1: out by the witch's brew of pretocides. The Bureau was 409 00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:09,160 Speaker 1: developing in its extermination methods lab, and there was another threat. 410 00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:14,960 Speaker 1: Condors also died from ingesting lead shot is by waterfowl hunters. 411 00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:19,240 Speaker 1: By the middle of the twentieth century, researchers using beetles 412 00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:23,920 Speaker 1: to strip the flesh from dead condors found their carcasses 413 00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,120 Speaker 1: so poisoned saturated they couldn't keep the beetles. 414 00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:29,760 Speaker 2: Alive long enough to do their work. 415 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:35,800 Speaker 1: Nature did not build condors to recover from human threats 416 00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:40,720 Speaker 1: like these, while condors often don't mate until they're six 417 00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,720 Speaker 1: or seven years old and commonly produce a single offspring 418 00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,800 Speaker 1: a year. The giant vultures were listed as endangered very 419 00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,440 Speaker 1: early in nineteen sixty seven, but. 420 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:53,200 Speaker 2: That was barely quick enough. 421 00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:56,360 Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty two, there were only twenty two of 422 00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,600 Speaker 1: them left on the planet. In nineteen eighty seven, the 423 00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:03,160 Speaker 1: Recovery Program for the Birds decided that with a mere 424 00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:08,800 Speaker 1: twenty seven condors alive, it would capture every wild condor 425 00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,880 Speaker 1: for use in a captive breeding program. It was a 426 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:18,520 Speaker 1: desperation pass in the final seconds of condor life, but 427 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:19,160 Speaker 1: it worked. 428 00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:22,840 Speaker 2: With broadcast coyote. 429 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:27,320 Speaker 1: Poisoning mostly at an end. As a result of Richard 430 00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:31,880 Speaker 1: Nixon's ban of it and waterfowl hunting slowly moving to 431 00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:37,040 Speaker 1: steel shot, threats to condors began to ebb so in 432 00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,719 Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties, the Fish and Wildlife Service began 433 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:46,280 Speaker 1: releasing condors into the wild again. Their recovery has necessitated 434 00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:52,120 Speaker 1: some remarkably imaginative efforts to get wild self sustaining populations nesting, 435 00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:59,240 Speaker 1: including enticing chicks to imprint on biologists dressed in condor suits. 436 00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:05,200 Speaker 1: But with more than four hundred condors now released in Arizona, 437 00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:10,480 Speaker 1: southern California, Baja and with the assistance of the europe 438 00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:16,000 Speaker 1: Tribe in Redwood's National Park in the Pacific northwest California, 439 00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:22,560 Speaker 1: condors once again apply American skies. The goal now is 440 00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,960 Speaker 1: both a west coast and an inland population, each with 441 00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:31,120 Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty birds and fifteen pairs of breeders 442 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:36,240 Speaker 1: with a reserve population remaining in captivity in case things 443 00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,640 Speaker 1: go south. That's what has been involved in saving just 444 00:34:41,000 --> 00:35:02,000 Speaker 1: one charismatic Western species under the Endangered Species Act. Not 445 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:06,640 Speaker 1: that this helps all those we lost before in Dangered 446 00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:11,520 Speaker 1: species legislation was finally passed, of course, on September the 447 00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:16,000 Speaker 1: twenty ninth of twenty twenty one. With no confirmable sighting 448 00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:20,160 Speaker 1: since the early nineteen forties, the Fish and Wildlife Service 449 00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:27,240 Speaker 1: declared America's magnificent ivory bill woodpecker extinct. Two years later, 450 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:31,800 Speaker 1: though in October of twenty twenty three, the Service decided 451 00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:37,200 Speaker 1: to give ivory bills citing another chance, hoping against hope 452 00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,480 Speaker 1: that somewhere in out back America someone would stumble on 453 00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:43,000 Speaker 1: a long lost. 454 00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:44,600 Speaker 2: Population of ivory bills. 455 00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,719 Speaker 1: Then perhaps, and here's where the real magical realism comes in, 456 00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:56,560 Speaker 1: discover that one small population of such birds would have 457 00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:01,400 Speaker 1: sufficient genetic diversity to last them into the future. 458 00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,200 Speaker 2: Although I grew. 459 00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,799 Speaker 1: Up in Ivory Built Country, a part of America where 460 00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:12,480 Speaker 1: stories of the magnificent birds and their toy trumpet cries 461 00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:16,400 Speaker 1: in the forest were still getting told in barber shops 462 00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:19,680 Speaker 1: and domino halls when I was a kid, I don't 463 00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,239 Speaker 1: expect to see an ivory bill woodpecker in my lifetime, 464 00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:28,440 Speaker 1: But then I never expected to see wolves either, or 465 00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:34,080 Speaker 1: bald eagles, or California condors or perebrian falcons. I was 466 00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:37,640 Speaker 1: graduating college about the time the Endangered Species Act of 467 00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:42,080 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three passed, and at the time our ancestors, 468 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,160 Speaker 1: Thoro's demigods of the past had robbed all of us 469 00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:50,520 Speaker 1: of the chance to experience an entire America like Thoro. 470 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:54,400 Speaker 1: I was that citizen to be pitied thanks to the 471 00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:59,160 Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act, though I've gotten to watch peregrins, the 472 00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,920 Speaker 1: fastest on Earth, shoot across the sky like fireworks on 473 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:07,640 Speaker 1: a Fourth of July. For years on my runs, I 474 00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,800 Speaker 1: passed beneath a cottonwood tree where a bald eagle cocked 475 00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:15,480 Speaker 1: its head to look down on me with an unblinking 476 00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:21,080 Speaker 1: reptilian eye. I've joined the roadside crowds with their Swarovsky 477 00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:25,120 Speaker 1: spotting scopes and yellowstones Lamar Valley to watch. 478 00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:27,320 Speaker 2: Wolves argue with grizzlies over. 479 00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:31,400 Speaker 1: A kill, and a little more personally, have lain in 480 00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:35,400 Speaker 1: my bed in Montana's Bitter Root Valley with the skylight 481 00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:39,880 Speaker 1: open and listen to the local three mile pack hol 482 00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:44,200 Speaker 1: up an evening and in a slowly spinning rubber raft 483 00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,319 Speaker 1: in the Grand Canyon. I've shielded my eyes from the 484 00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:52,440 Speaker 1: sun to track a California condors, graceful circles against red 485 00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:55,880 Speaker 1: cliffs and the deep blue that will always be there. 486 00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:00,200 Speaker 2: So what's the lesson this thing? 487 00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:06,120 Speaker 1: We Americans may be slow to the game and sometimes. 488 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,400 Speaker 2: Diverted by dark forces, but given the existence of a law. 489 00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:15,120 Speaker 1: Like the Endangered Species Act, our past shows that we 490 00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,440 Speaker 1: have it in us to save the magic. 491 00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:18,840 Speaker 2: In the world. 492 00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:35,239 Speaker 3: To Dan, in this episode, you talk about the Endangered 493 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,919 Speaker 3: Species Act, and you give us the sort of deep 494 00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:46,240 Speaker 3: background context behind the reason for the act, right and 495 00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:49,160 Speaker 3: and then you set up the Act as sort of 496 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:56,680 Speaker 3: a moment of American exceptionalism, And I wonder today they're 497 00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,360 Speaker 3: very it's a very divisive topic, and it's sort of 498 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,840 Speaker 3: strange to see the unit in near unanimity with which 499 00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,760 Speaker 3: this Act passed Congress. And I sort of wonder how 500 00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:18,960 Speaker 3: you think about the Endangered Species Act as it was 501 00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:23,720 Speaker 3: created in that moment and as it exists today. Because 502 00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:29,000 Speaker 3: one of the things about policy and public policy making 503 00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,080 Speaker 3: is that the way we govern ourselves changes over time, 504 00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,000 Speaker 3: and strategies of advocacy change over time, and so laws 505 00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,400 Speaker 3: that are passed in one moment of history maybe have 506 00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,359 Speaker 3: different effects decades down the road. 507 00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,120 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. 508 00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:49,920 Speaker 1: The remarkable thing about the Endangered Species Act of seventy three, 509 00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:54,160 Speaker 1: which is the Grand Act, the Culminating Act, or two 510 00:39:54,280 --> 00:40:02,719 Speaker 1: previous ones, is that it it was, in a lot 511 00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:08,360 Speaker 1: of ways, the crowning achievement. I think of that fifteen 512 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:12,320 Speaker 1: year period from the late fifties through the early nineteen 513 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:17,320 Speaker 1: seventies of a kind of an awareness about environmental issues 514 00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,520 Speaker 1: in America that had never really been there. I mean, 515 00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,560 Speaker 1: as someone who who got to live through that, I 516 00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:26,960 Speaker 1: was in college in the late nineteen sixties and early 517 00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,359 Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and so it was a time. I mean, 518 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,800 Speaker 1: I was in college at the time of the First 519 00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:38,560 Speaker 1: Earth Day, and you you kind of, at least in 520 00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,719 Speaker 1: my case, I look back on it and in some 521 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:48,720 Speaker 1: ways wonder why the present generation, now fifty three years later, 522 00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,879 Speaker 1: has a difficult time understanding what seemed to be at 523 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:57,680 Speaker 1: stake then. But we seem to be in the late 524 00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:02,600 Speaker 1: sixties and early seventies at a real risis, and acts 525 00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:06,160 Speaker 1: like clean Air and Clean Water and the Wilderness Act 526 00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,040 Speaker 1: and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the National 527 00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:13,640 Speaker 1: Trails Bill and the Endangered Species Act, all of those 528 00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,880 Speaker 1: were kind of designed to meet that moment and to 529 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,400 Speaker 1: give us a sense that we were going that America 530 00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:24,920 Speaker 1: could always respond, it could always come up with an 531 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,880 Speaker 1: answer for things, and that we were not going to 532 00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,440 Speaker 1: let awful things happen. 533 00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:30,920 Speaker 2: To this country. 534 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:33,440 Speaker 1: We were going to do a very positive thing and 535 00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:39,040 Speaker 1: save species. And I think what we have fifty years 536 00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:44,000 Speaker 1: later is for one thing, a human half a human lifetime, 537 00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:48,719 Speaker 1: anyway of experience with the Endangered Species Act enough to 538 00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:53,680 Speaker 1: give people plenty of time to reflect on what it 539 00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,960 Speaker 1: actually implied. I mean, you could make an argument. I've 540 00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,879 Speaker 1: heard people make the argument that, well, some of those 541 00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:04,799 Speaker 1: overwhelming votes that took place ninety two to nothing in 542 00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,160 Speaker 1: favor of the Act and the Senate, for example, that 543 00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:11,640 Speaker 1: took place by people who weren't able to anticipate what 544 00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:15,319 Speaker 1: this was going to produce in terms of change in 545 00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,640 Speaker 1: the United States. And I mean that probably has a 546 00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:24,080 Speaker 1: certain amount of validity. But to me, this is an 547 00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:27,359 Speaker 1: act that kind of in a way stands as shorthand 548 00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:31,080 Speaker 1: for who Americans are. I mean, one of the things 549 00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,680 Speaker 1: that I argue in the script, of course, is that 550 00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,120 Speaker 1: it falls into the same category of things like the 551 00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:42,480 Speaker 1: Emancipation Proclamation and the Constitutional Amendment giving women the right 552 00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,239 Speaker 1: to vote, and giving Native people in nineteen twenty four 553 00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:47,920 Speaker 1: the right to vote and to be citizens in the 554 00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:53,680 Speaker 1: United States. And so it's one of those enlargementths of treatment, 555 00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:58,600 Speaker 1: of moral treatment, and in this instance, which is right 556 00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,880 Speaker 1: out of the sixties and early seventies, it's the extension 557 00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,680 Speaker 1: of moral treatment to the natural world itself, and that, 558 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,640 Speaker 1: of course is a that's a major thing for a 559 00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,200 Speaker 1: country to do. We were once again, this is kind 560 00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,680 Speaker 1: of an argument for American exceptionalism, because we were the 561 00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,080 Speaker 1: first country in the world to do this, just as 562 00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:19,080 Speaker 1: we were the first country in the world to create 563 00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,640 Speaker 1: a national park system, and so it's part of our 564 00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:26,640 Speaker 1: our I think of our grand tradition. In the fifty 565 00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,120 Speaker 1: years since, we've had a lot of experiences with how 566 00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:31,560 Speaker 1: it plays out on the ground, and there have been 567 00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:35,120 Speaker 1: some people who have been unhappy with these grand visionary 568 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:41,440 Speaker 1: kind of steps, but I think the overriding sense of 569 00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,919 Speaker 1: the importance of the endangered species activity still prevails. It's 570 00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,440 Speaker 1: one of the great steps that America has ever taken. 571 00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:51,880 Speaker 2: Yeah, when you think about it, that the idea that. 572 00:43:54,840 --> 00:44:00,920 Speaker 3: Government should have a role preventing individual space from going 573 00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:06,600 Speaker 3: extinct is actually a very radical idea in the broad 574 00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:12,440 Speaker 3: view of Western civilization, right. I mean, it's it's a 575 00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:18,040 Speaker 3: fundamental step beyond whatever assumptions we make about the scope 576 00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:23,080 Speaker 3: of government. It's not just protecting resources. And I think 577 00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,960 Speaker 3: one of the one of the distinctions that you, I 578 00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,840 Speaker 3: think rightly point out is that the conservation movement, with 579 00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:36,160 Speaker 3: its origins in the hunting and angling community, has always 580 00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:39,400 Speaker 3: been very clear eyed about well, I shouldn't say always 581 00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:43,840 Speaker 3: and talking about history, but since the inception of like 582 00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:47,480 Speaker 3: the George Bird Grenell's Theodore Roosevelt, sort of the progressive 583 00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,440 Speaker 3: conservation movement, it's been very clear eyed about threats to 584 00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,960 Speaker 3: game species and how to address threats to game species, 585 00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:58,279 Speaker 3: and how to propagate game species. But there's been a 586 00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,440 Speaker 3: blind spot when it comes to non games species. And 587 00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,080 Speaker 3: for the federal government to step in and say, hey, 588 00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,640 Speaker 3: the snail darter has a right to exist and we'll 589 00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:14,919 Speaker 3: defend that right is a very big leap in terms 590 00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:17,160 Speaker 3: of just thinking about the power of the state. 591 00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:19,600 Speaker 1: It is a big lape, and I would say that 592 00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:24,560 Speaker 1: you had the arguments during the the discussion of the 593 00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,839 Speaker 1: bill included a reference to something like the snail darter 594 00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:32,239 Speaker 1: or the centipede, it likely wouldn't have resonated quite the 595 00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,440 Speaker 1: same way. But one of the things that happened, of course, 596 00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,680 Speaker 1: is that we were on the verge of losing bald 597 00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:42,040 Speaker 1: eagles our national symbol, and so the bald eagle I 598 00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:47,040 Speaker 1: think became representative of as you pointed out, and I 599 00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:50,560 Speaker 1: think this is really the focus of the Endangered Species Act. 600 00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:59,040 Speaker 1: It saves animals, birds, mammals, fishes that were not a 601 00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:03,920 Speaker 1: part of the protections that went into place during the 602 00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:07,480 Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt period and the George Bird Grenelle Boone and 603 00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:12,800 Speaker 1: Crockett period. In order to protect game animals and game fishes. 604 00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:15,520 Speaker 1: I mean, we were very and it has to do 605 00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:19,760 Speaker 1: obviously with our own self interests. We're interested in making 606 00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:21,760 Speaker 1: sure that we're going to have elk to be able 607 00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,000 Speaker 1: to continue to hunt. We're going to have mule there, 608 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,600 Speaker 1: we're going to have wild turkeys. We're going to do 609 00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:29,840 Speaker 1: everything we can to bring pronghorn antelope back for that 610 00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:35,080 Speaker 1: particular reason. But nobody had a vested interest in making 611 00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:38,800 Speaker 1: sure that we didn't lose bald eagles or golden eagles. 612 00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,520 Speaker 1: In fact, many of the species that end up getting 613 00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:45,480 Speaker 1: saved by the Endangered Species Act were actually creatures that 614 00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,919 Speaker 1: we had tried to wipe out in the early part 615 00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,400 Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. And so that that's another indication 616 00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:57,680 Speaker 1: of the revolutionary kind of step this was. It's not 617 00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:03,640 Speaker 1: only saying that the government has the right and really 618 00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:08,239 Speaker 1: the obligation, as Richard Nixon put it, to make sure 619 00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,160 Speaker 1: we didn't give these creatures life in the first place, 620 00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,600 Speaker 1: and it's not our place to take it away from them. 621 00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,920 Speaker 1: So it's a radical thing not only to say that 622 00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,560 Speaker 1: the government has the obligation to protect these species, but 623 00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:24,800 Speaker 1: it's a radical thing to say, here are the ones 624 00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:28,959 Speaker 1: that we're going to try to save. Yeah, And that's 625 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,600 Speaker 1: part of the whole kind of weight that goes along 626 00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:34,040 Speaker 1: with the ESA. 627 00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:38,880 Speaker 2: Yeah. I think you know you. 628 00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:44,000 Speaker 3: Right in this episode about sort of short term memory 629 00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:49,799 Speaker 3: when it comes to the very real environmental challenges that 630 00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:53,760 Speaker 3: this country faced in the sixties and seventies and earlier. 631 00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:59,880 Speaker 3: And you also talk about generations inheriting different places for 632 00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:01,239 Speaker 3: earlier generations. 633 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:03,280 Speaker 2: Yeah. 634 00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:07,640 Speaker 3: And then as I was reading the section about condors. 635 00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:12,160 Speaker 3: I was thinking about how strange it would be. Is 636 00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:15,080 Speaker 3: just sort of a thought experiment had the condors blinked 637 00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:19,080 Speaker 3: out and here I am. And that was in the 638 00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:22,120 Speaker 3: kind of the late eighties early nineties when that really 639 00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:23,960 Speaker 3: came to a head, And I was just thinking, as 640 00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,799 Speaker 3: sort of a thought experiment, if I were forty years 641 00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:31,040 Speaker 3: old today as I am, and a kid saw a 642 00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:33,879 Speaker 3: picture of a condor and I said, Oh, that's this 643 00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,399 Speaker 3: giant bird that used to exist, but we poisoned them all, 644 00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:41,719 Speaker 3: you know, and they're not around anymore. It's sort of 645 00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:46,239 Speaker 3: a shocking Maybe I sound naive, but it's sort of 646 00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:49,040 Speaker 3: a shocking thought experiment to put yourself in the shoes 647 00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:54,960 Speaker 3: of someone who said, yeah, and in my lifetime, this big, giant, 648 00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:58,560 Speaker 3: charismatic bird blinked out. And I know there's a lot 649 00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:07,719 Speaker 3: of you know, political fighting about you know, the use 650 00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:10,200 Speaker 3: of lead ammo and copper ammo, and. 651 00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:13,000 Speaker 2: You know, just. 652 00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:18,640 Speaker 3: There are burdens produced by endangered species protections that are 653 00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:22,680 Speaker 3: very very real, and especially in the farming and ranching community, 654 00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:27,400 Speaker 3: like they have issues with the burdens that this place 655 00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,319 Speaker 3: is on their livelihood. But at the same time, you know, 656 00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:36,000 Speaker 3: I think when I think about the condor disappearing in 657 00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:39,239 Speaker 3: my lifetime, and you know, were there a coloring book 658 00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:41,440 Speaker 3: when I was little. I'm sure there was a condor 659 00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:43,959 Speaker 3: that I colored in, And that's probably you know, big 660 00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:52,360 Speaker 3: ESA propaganda, right. But extinction is is sort of a 661 00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:54,680 Speaker 3: concept that's very hard to wrap your mind around, and 662 00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:57,560 Speaker 3: even more so when you talk about it happening during 663 00:49:57,560 --> 00:49:58,400 Speaker 3: your own lifetime. 664 00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:00,560 Speaker 1: Well, one of the things I tried to do with 665 00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,880 Speaker 1: the script for this particular one is to make it 666 00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:08,600 Speaker 1: personal for people, the way thorough did when he wrote 667 00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:12,839 Speaker 1: that famous passage about he wanted to know an entire 668 00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:17,279 Speaker 1: heaven and an entire Earth, and yet his demigods had 669 00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:20,719 Speaker 1: come before him and had destroyed so many of these 670 00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:23,560 Speaker 1: creatures that he never was going to get to see them. 671 00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,319 Speaker 1: And I tried to give this particular script a kind 672 00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:34,960 Speaker 1: of a personal and immediate validity by talking about my 673 00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:38,080 Speaker 1: own experience. I mean, I grew up in the South 674 00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:42,240 Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies when people still 675 00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:46,800 Speaker 1: talked about having seen Ivory Bill Woodpeckers. I heard people 676 00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,560 Speaker 1: talk about seeing them. I never got to see one, 677 00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,919 Speaker 1: and very likely I'm never going to get to see one. 678 00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:58,280 Speaker 1: So this is and my grandparents would tell me about 679 00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:02,560 Speaker 1: seeing passenger pigeon flights early in the twentieth century. By 680 00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,600 Speaker 1: the time I came along, that was an impossibility. And 681 00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,200 Speaker 1: so it's part of that threeau thing where what he 682 00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:12,560 Speaker 1: was saying, I think was that the past, this kind 683 00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:16,640 Speaker 1: of past especially, doesn't stay in the past. It affects 684 00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,880 Speaker 1: the kind of world you get to live in. And 685 00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,279 Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I never thought I was 686 00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:25,239 Speaker 1: going to get to see a wolf or hear a 687 00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,280 Speaker 1: wolf howl. I never thought I was going to get 688 00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:32,920 Speaker 1: to see a condor sail over the Grand Canyon. 689 00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,359 Speaker 2: I never thought that many of. 690 00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:38,120 Speaker 1: These species that the people who had come before me, 691 00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:41,560 Speaker 1: the generations had come before me, had basically destroyed I 692 00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:44,440 Speaker 1: was going to get to see. But the Endangered Species 693 00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,680 Speaker 1: Act has made it possible for all of us to 694 00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,360 Speaker 1: get to see. If you're interested in seeing bald eagles, 695 00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,680 Speaker 1: you can very easily see bald eagles. If you're interested 696 00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:56,640 Speaker 1: in seeing wolves, these days, you can easily go to 697 00:51:56,719 --> 00:52:00,480 Speaker 1: Yellowstone and stop at the pull out at the Lamar Valley, 698 00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:02,680 Speaker 1: and if you're there for a couple of mornings, you'll 699 00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:06,240 Speaker 1: get to see wolves in the Lamar Valley, and that's 700 00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:10,759 Speaker 1: something that we came really close to losing that the 701 00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:13,839 Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act saved for us. 702 00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:18,600 Speaker 3: Lastly, I have a question that I'm just kind of 703 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,480 Speaker 3: curious where you'll take this, because it's sort of out 704 00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:26,880 Speaker 3: and left field in the In the in the episode 705 00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:32,719 Speaker 3: on Repeat Photography, you talked about the idea of a 706 00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,400 Speaker 3: climax of vegetation, and there was this idea at one 707 00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:40,359 Speaker 3: point in time that if you just let a landscape go, 708 00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:47,440 Speaker 3: it'll reach a set sort of stable suite of plants 709 00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:52,160 Speaker 3: and animals and that'll just be it right. And so 710 00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:57,720 Speaker 3: I'm curious how you think about the Endangered Species Act 711 00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:02,680 Speaker 3: and we have fifty years of it. You're also someone 712 00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:08,640 Speaker 3: who thinks in evolutionary time, and you know that species 713 00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:12,160 Speaker 3: are coming and going all over the place, and so 714 00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:17,960 Speaker 3: I read the bit about climax vegetation and I thought, 715 00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:22,719 Speaker 3: is the ESA does that mean we're at climax wildlife 716 00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:26,160 Speaker 3: in the United States as in like the Obviously they're 717 00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,200 Speaker 3: working on much different scales of time. But I'm just 718 00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:32,799 Speaker 3: sort of curious how you think about the Endangered Species Act, 719 00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:36,840 Speaker 3: knowing how much you like to think about the evolutionary 720 00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:37,920 Speaker 3: stream yeah. 721 00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,000 Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, you're absolutely right. 722 00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:43,759 Speaker 1: The big picture, obviously is that species come and go. 723 00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:48,239 Speaker 1: There are background extinctions happening all the time. It's a 724 00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:51,279 Speaker 1: part of the natural world and it always has been. 725 00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:56,000 Speaker 1: I think something you mentioned is the difference here is 726 00:53:56,040 --> 00:54:00,600 Speaker 1: the timescale. I mean, what we're talking about is very 727 00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:05,560 Speaker 1: brief time scale where human activities are able to force 728 00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:09,160 Speaker 1: things to happen in the natural world at a far 729 00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:12,799 Speaker 1: faster rate than they happen as just in the background 730 00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:20,520 Speaker 1: of normal ecological and evolutionary change. And it's that forcing 731 00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:24,840 Speaker 1: that I think human activities have produced in the natural 732 00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,640 Speaker 1: world that to me, the Endangered Species Act tries to 733 00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:32,520 Speaker 1: thwart and if it is able. 734 00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,760 Speaker 2: To do a kind of a. 735 00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:39,120 Speaker 1: Climax preserve the world as we know it now, I'm 736 00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:43,239 Speaker 1: very happy to see that, because I don't want to 737 00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:48,759 Speaker 1: experience any more of these things, like the emotional kind 738 00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,600 Speaker 1: of hit that I've taken on several occasions when we 739 00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,960 Speaker 1: thought we had found ivory bills and then it turned 740 00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:57,920 Speaker 1: out they weren't there again, and you have to conclude 741 00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:01,400 Speaker 1: once again, one of the most dramatic bird species in 742 00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:04,400 Speaker 1: all of North America you're never going to get to see. 743 00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:07,840 Speaker 3: Yeah, It just strikes me because again you with the 744 00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:12,680 Speaker 3: ivory billed woodpecker example, had we gotten an Endangered Species 745 00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:16,920 Speaker 3: Act fifty years prior, we would live with a different world, 746 00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:19,359 Speaker 3: and had we gotten it fifty years later, we would 747 00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:21,560 Speaker 3: live with a very different world exactly right. So it's 748 00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:24,799 Speaker 3: sort of what it has us. Yeah, just just a 749 00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:28,840 Speaker 3: thought experiment that because when you think about these big questions, 750 00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:31,240 Speaker 3: I mean that that's sort of where my head always goes, 751 00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:34,600 Speaker 3: is these are this is what we've got. 752 00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:38,319 Speaker 2: I love your big questions. Thanks Dan,