Endangered Species Act (1973) The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a wide-ranging legislative act passed in the 1970s to provide a means by which the ecosystem that a species depends on may be conserved and to provide a program by which to protect these species. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was the comprehensive end product of seventy years of incremental federal wildlife law.  It was spawned by an extremely symbolic issue, the environmental movement, which fed public sentiment and support and was buttressed by an amazingly strong, and well organized, set of activist groups and a powerful set of congressional staff and members. The principal objective of this bill was to insure that we would never again unthinkably cause the extinction of unique plant and animal life. Significant to the ESA was the establishment of “critical habitats” which allowed conservationists to not only protect the species but also their habitat.  As habitat loss is the primary threat to most imperiled species, the original ESA of 1973 allowed the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to designate specific areas as protected "critical habitat" zones. The purpose of the ESA is ultimately to provide a means whereby the ecosystem upon which endangered and threatened species depend may be conserved. Habitats are the most important aspects of preserving an endangered species. It usually takes quite some time for a species to recover, once it is on the ESA list. As of April 3, 2007, 47 species have been delisted, or removed from the ESA protected species list. About twenty species have been delisted because of recovery. A species is considered recovered when they have achieved a “minimum viable population” level, a level for which the species can functionally survive, for a number of years.  Twenty-three other species have been downlisted from endangered to threatened status. Threatened species don’t require as much funding or as much effort and monitoring because of their increased population size. More Information: Fish and Wildlife Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Protection Agency Sierra Club, Critical Habitats More about Endangered Species Biblical Understanding of Endangered Species NCC Biodiversity Home NCC Endangered Species Home