Not all that long ago, America's symbol, the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), was an endangered species. The American people, rightly concerned about our magnificent national symbol, were largely in favor of protecting the great raptors, and what followed was one of the great success stories in modern wildlife management: The Bald Eagle is now resurgent, even common in some places. Here in our Susitna Valley homestead, a short way from the mighty Susitna River, we see them regularly, and there are places we can drive to within an hour where it's common, during the salmon run, to see eagles gathered in the dozens. There are many such success stories, and that's good. We should not treat the wildlife that shares the environment with us carelessly.
Here's the thing: We can and should care about our own impact on wildlife, and, where possible, preserve the species that our activities might be harming. But the history of life on this earth is a history of extinction; right around 99 percent of the species to ever have lived on this planet are now extinct, most long before any humans were walking around with pointed sticks. So, when the federal government spends over a billion dollars on endangered species, we should be asking, "Which species, how much are we spending on each, and why?"
That's the subject of a CFact column by David Wojick, and it's worth the read.
The Endangered Species Act requires a “Report to Congress on Federal and State Endangered and Threatened Species Expenditures.“> It appears that the federal portion alone amounts to well over a billion dollars a year.
Clearly, there is an entire industry here. What the specific spending is for, and who gets it, is a mystery. But there is a lot of fun detail in what each agency spends on each protected species.
First, a caveat. I say “appears” because the latest expenditure report I can find is from fiscal year 2020. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service produces this report, and they have an online collection here.
It ends with the 2020 report. They may have the more recent reports in an online database but their big species data system, called ECOS, says there is no occurrence of the term “expenditure.” It even lists its standard reports here.
The 2020 data is good enough to get the feel of what is going on, so let’s go with that. I will point out some stuff that I find interesting, even surprising. Other people might want to look at other aspects that are relevant to them.
OK, I have a question right there. Where is the more recent data? Why does the reporting seem to stop at 2020? This is our money that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is spending, and we are entitled to know what they are spending it on.
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Here's the onion:
Table 1 lists every species and the total expenditure across all agencies, except land acquisition is not included. The species are listed alphabetically, by common name, within biological groups like birds, fishes, flowering plants, etc. Surprisingly, there are more plants than animals.
Most interesting is the total federal expenditure for the year of $1,135,610,898 or well over a billion dollars. Endangered Species is a very large program that the public knows very little about.
There is, as Mr. Wojick points out, an industry that has grown up around this. That always seems to be the case, that any government or government program will grow far beyond its intended purpose. This is, in fact, a fundamental law of the universe, known as Clark's Law of Progressive Government Bloat, which states: Government, in any form and at every level, grows ever larger and more intrusive over time.
Table 2 also lists all the species, but they are ranked by expenditure from most down to least. So, Table 1 is the place to look up a particular species, while Table 2 is the place to see where the big bucks are going. Table 1 includes the Table 2 ranking for each species.
Surprisingly, 27 out of the top 30 funded species are fish. Many are various species of salmon and steelhead, but there are others. The three non-fish are the North Atlantic Right Whale, the Desert Tortoise, and the West Indian Manatee. The little-known Razorback Sucker gets more money than any of these three at $14,425,633.
Table 2 includes a running top-down total. The top 30 species, almost all being fish, collectively get $658,328,316 or over half of the program money. Last place is shared by a birch, a chub, and a snail at $100 each. The Red Wolf just beats them at $200.
That's a lot of money spent on fish, and we should note that a lot of these fish, to my understanding, represent not a discrete species, but rather a regional subspecies.
Here's what needs to happen here. Nobody is saying we should not care at all about any species going extinct, especially when human activities may have contributed to the extinction, as is the case in creatures like the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis). But for the luvva Pete, there has to be some more cost-benefit analysis here. Should we spend a billion dollars to save the last remaining population of, say, the Arkansas Fatmucket? At what point do we write off, say, the Purple Bankclimber?
There has to be some reckoning here.
Look, lots of people love the outdoors and the critters and plants that inhabit it. Plenty of people, like my wife and I, care about the environment because we live out in it. But this spending, over a billion dollars, which is predominantly going to local populations of fish most people have never heard of, that's too much.
99 percent of all species that have ever lived on this planet are now extinct. Extinction is an inevitable aspect of biology. It happens no matter what we do. While we shouldn't treat this phenomenon capriciously, neither should we bankrupt ourselves over it. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service should learn how to apply some cost/benefit analysis here.
