"I'm all for conservation," Frank Ribelin, a landowner outside Austin, Texas, told U.S. News & World Report two decades after passage of the Endangered Species Act, "but I'd like to club the little bastards." He meant the golden-cheeked warbler, a sparrow-sized songbird that leaves the state only to winter in Central America. As a family member said, land like theirs "used to be sold by the square foot, but that all crumbled the day the warbler was listed." Once an endangered species was found there, the land's value plummeted.
Thirty years later, the warbler's status remains unchanged: It is still listed as endangered. The bird's fate exemplifies several things about the act, which has become one of the most controversial laws on the books since being passed 50 years ago in December 1973. For one thing, an endangered species listing holds the power to make a conservationist want to bludgeon a dainty and rare bird to death. For another, the warbler's lack of progress highlights the Endangered Species Act's dismal record of achieving its ultimate goal: conserving species to the point that protections under the law "are no longer necessary."
