Non-native species and the Endangered Species Act

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Non-native species and the Endangered Species Act

Postby cmsellers » Sun May 08, 2016 2:59 am

So I recently learned from the severely-outdated "pending legislation" section of American Federation of Aviculture's severely outdated website that the Fish and Wildlife Service has listed at least a few parrot species under the Endangered Species Act, some of which the AFA is lobbying to remove.

This reminds me of an uproar in the exotic pet community when the FWS listed chimpanzees under the ESA. There are other arguments against the private keeping of chimps than conservation concerns, which is why I didn't raise this issue here then, however that was the first time that I learned that the FWS could list non-native species under the ESA. Since but those issues (safety and difficulty) apply far less to blue-throated macaws and grass parakeets, and as such my feelings are rather less mixed here. Listing species under the ESA has two main effects:

  1. It prohibits moving these species across state lines without a license, which as a matter of the policy the FWS will never grant for commercial purposes (including moving your private pet from one state to another) leading to the extinction of privately-held captive populations in most or all states. An example of this is lemurs. All lemurs have been listed for some time. As far as I know the only states where species other than the ringtail lemur are still being bred by private individuals are Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, and even ring-tailed lemurs are hard to find outside those three states.
  2. It can have the effect of instantly banning the affected species in states that prohibit private ownership of species listed on the Endangered Species Act.
As a child I learned about the ESA and how awesome it was, having brought the bald eagle and peregrine falcon back from extinction. The impression that I got then was that the Endangered Species Act was protecting native species.

And while I strongly support it, in that capacity, I can comprehend no benefit to listing non-native species under the Endangered Species Act, assuming they are already listed under Appendix I of CITES and thereby prohibited from being imported into the United States for commercial purposes. (All parrots are listed on Appendix I of CITES, and all primates are illegal to import due to health concerns, though species rare enough to be listed under the ESA are all Appendix I anyways.)

Captive populations of endangered species in the US have no effect on the wild populations. In fact, they serve as a genetic reservoir for species with severely limited populations. Conservationists generally don't like captive-breeding programs, particularly in private hands, because private breeders tend to mix subspecies and captive populations will never have the genetic diversity of wild populations.

However countries where these species come from tend to do a poor job of protecting the wild populations. In fact habitat destruction is usually a bigger problem than poaching, and while capture for the pet trade can strain already vulnerable species, there is no evidence that poached members of endangered species end up in the US even in the hands of unscrupulous rich people, let alone in the hands of private breeders with their dilligent attention to bloodlines.

To take two examples of the conservation value of private breeders: due to the fragmentation of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest, the Spix's Macaw is only extant today because there were a few individuals in Europe who were breeding them as pets, and the cotton-top tamarin, while critically endangered in the wild (again due largely to habitat loss), is one of the most commonly-kept primates in captivity in the US, with all individuals since the 70's being captive-bred.

I suspect honestly that part of the reason for listing foreign endangered species may just be embarassment on the part of the FWS. When someone says "there are more cotton-top-tamarins/Bengal tigers in private hands in the United States than there are in the wild," the impulse is to try to reduce the number of animals in private hands (an easy solution that the FWS can effect) rather than increase the number in the wild (a difficult task the FWS has no control over.

And like a lot of poorly-considered conservation initiatives, animal rights groups can always be found lobbying for the listing of these animals, but considering that animal rights groups would rather see animals die out completely than be preserved even in zoos, there is zero reason to listen to their conservation advice.

Point is, the use of the ESA to target non-native species (unless those species are not CITES listed and are currently being imported into the US) pisses me off, both because it reduces the availability of captive-bred animals for pets and because I can see no remotely valid conservation reason for it.

So I thought I'd ask: can any of you see a somewhat plausible justification as to why listing lemurs, cotton-top tamarins, and blue-throated macaws on the Endangered Species list would positively impact the the survival of the species?
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