US law protecting endangered species hampered by poor resources, study says

The report found that since 1985, one of the main sources of ESA’s funding had decreased by almost 50%. Photograph: Karen Bleier/Jerret Raffety/Brendan Smialowski/California Department of Fish and Game/AP/AFP/Getty Images

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has long been hampered by inadequate resources, leaving the US’s foremost law for protecting plants and animals filled with delays and failures in species recovery, researchers said on Wednesday.

The findings, published in the scientific journal Plos One on the eve of the law’s 50th anniversary, helped shed light on why, despite hundreds of species listed, only 54 in the country have fully recovered.