Endangered Species Legislation in Canada and the United States: How Newfoundland Compares

We recently addressed how Newfoundland’s species at risk legislation compares to other provinces.  In today’s blog, we will address how Newfoundland’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) compares to Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA) and the United States Endangered Species Act (US ESA).  By moving to the national level, it is possible to address how countries are doing in terms of endangered species legislation.

The Species at Risk Act (SARA) was passed in 2002.  The sole purpose of SARA is to “prevent Canadian indigenous species, subspecies, and distinct populations of wildlife from becoming extirpated or extinct” and to “provide recovery of endangered or threatened species” (SARA, 2002).  Under SARA, a body of wildlife experts forms the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), which is assigned to assess the status of species across the country, and recommend species at risk to be listed under SARA (Findlay et al., 2009).  COSEWIC forwards their recommendations to the federal Governor in Council (see Figure 1; Findlay et al., 2009).  This is similar to Newfoundland’s Species Status Advisory Committee (SSAC), which forwards their recommendations to the Minister of Environment.

Figure 1.  The species listing process under SARA from the initial assessment by COSEWIC to its final listing under SARA (Environment Canada, 2010).

As well, like Newfoundland’s ESA, there are issues with SARA.  Candidate species are prioritized under COSEWIC based on a combination of threats, population dynamics, et c.,  but if a species is listed as “Data Deficient” SARA will not conduct more research on the species or reassess the species immediately (Mooers et al., 2010).  As such, species that may be at risk of extinction, but are listed as “Data Deficient” will not be protected under SARA.  Further, there are large discrepancies between the number of species listed and there effective recovery strategies, recovery plans, and determined critical habitats (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. The number of legally listed wildlife species up to 2003 and the respective number of recovery strategies, recovery action plans, and defined critical habitats.  The black bars indicate species that are listed as “Threatened” and white bars indicate species that are “Endangered” (from Figure 3 of Mooers et al., 2010)

There are also large discrepancies between taxa (group of organisms), with terrestrial mammals having proportionally less species assessed under COSEWIC being listed under SARA’s legislation (see Figure 3; Findlay et al., 2009).  Findlay et al. (2009) also report that harvested species and northern species (from the territories) are substantially less likely to be listed under SARA. 

Figure 3. The proportion of taxa with completed assessments by COSEWIC that are listed under SARA.  The bars are calculated differently to correct for differences in Not Listing a species, where NL=outright rejection; NL(REF)=outright rejection or referred back to COSEWIC; and NL(REF,EP)=outright rejected or referred back to COSEWIC or deferred to an extended consultation period.  What is to be noticed is the trend, where marine fishes are not represented at all, and birds, herps (reptiles and amphibians), plants, and invertebrates are nearly always designated under SARA (from Figure 1 of Findlay et al., 2009).

            Comparing to Newfoundland’s ESA, SARA needs to work harder to represent all of Canada’s biodiversity.  Newfoundland’s ESA is not perfect either, as many species that have been recommended for listing still have not been assessed by the Minister (as discussed in our previous blog).

            As we can see, there are problems that arise with Canadian endangered species legislation.  But how does Newfoundland, and Canada, compare internationally?  Particularly, how do we compare to the United States?

            The United States Endangered Species Act (US ESA) was created in 1973 (nearly three decades before SARA) to protect threatened wildlife (Gordon et al., 1997).  A species status under the US ESA is determined by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for terrestrial and freshwater organisms, which designates a species as either Endangered or Threatened (ESA, 1973).  The FWS is supposed to work with States, Tribes, private landowners, and other federal agencies to carry out conservation actions as listed under the US ESA (FWS, 2011).  However, how well the US ESA actually works is a different story.

            The US ESA has become controversial, causing political divisions and proposals to alter the legislation (Gordon et al., 1997).  This is partly due to the US ESA being applicable to private lands (not the case for SARA or NLs ESA) and conflicts with economic activities (Gordon et al., 1997).  This has led to the US ESA being essentially non-effective, and government spending has been placed elsewhere (see Figure 4; Gordon et al., 1997).  However, acting as a compromise for the US ESA, Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) have been used to conserve ecosystems that organisms rely upon (FWS, 2011).  As such, the American government has focused on protecting critical habitats for its biodiversity, which bypasses their own legislation for protecting individual organisms at threat of extinction.

Figure 4. Government spending on its Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) compared to the all other Government expenditures from 1989 to 1993 revealing the transition from heavy investment in wildlife protection to much reduced investment efforts (from Figure 10 of Gordon et al., 1997).

            As we can see, there are several differences between Newfoundland, Canadian, and American species at risk legislation.  While Newfoundland and Canadian species at risk legislation works in a similar manner of having an advisory committee and a governing official doing the final listing, the United States has reduced its use of it ESA, opting to use Habitat Conservation Plans instead.  Where there are limitations in the US ESA, Canada tried to make alterations (e.g., SARA not applicable on private land) to better protect species at risk of extinction.  However, even with modifications to the legislation, there are still problems that need to be overcome.

            In our next blog, we will address how Newfoundland’s ESA compares to legislation across the globe.  Our international focus will help to determine where the province, and Canada, stands in terms of protecting its biodiversity through endangered species legislation.

For more information, check out the following links:

Species at Risk Act Registry

SARA Terrestrial Species Listing

COSEWIC Homepage

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

References:

SARA. 2002. Species at risk act. Retrieved on March 26, 2012 at http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/approach/act/sara_e.pdf

Findlay, C.S., S. Elgie, B. Giles, and L. Burr. 2009. Species listing under Canada’s species at risk act. Conservation Biology 23(6):1609-1617.

Environment Canada. 2010. Consultation on amending the list of species under the species at risk act: terrestrial species. Retrieved on March 26, 2012 at

http://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/public/cd_terrestrial_species_1210_e.pdf

Mooers, A.O., D.F. Doak, C.S. Findlay, D.M. Green, C. Grouios, L.L. Manne, A. Rashvand, M.A. Rudd, and Jeanette Whitton. 2010. Science, policy, and species at risk in Canada. BioScience 60(11):843-849.

Gordon, R.E., J.K. Lacy, and J.R. Streeter. 1997. Conservation under the endangered species act. Environment International 23(3):359-419.

FWS. 2011. Conserving the nature of America. Retrieved on March 26, 2012 at http://www.fws.gov/