Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Washington, DC—In response to a 2008 petition by WildEarth Guardians, today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) proposed to list the Wright’s marsh thistle (Cirsium wrightii) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a “threatened” species. The thistle is native to Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, but is currently known only from eight locations in New Mexico. The thistle is a wetland plant imperiled by water management practices that dry out its habitat.

“The imperilment of this rare plant points to larger problems within the watersheds that sustain them,” said Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “Hopefully this listing will protect important water resources for both plants and people.”

Since the ESA’s enactment, 99 percent of listed species have avoided extinction, and hundreds more have been set on a path to recovery. The law is especially important as a defense against the current extinction crisis; species are disappearing at a rate much higher than the natural rate of extinction due to human activities, resulting in what some scientists term a “biological annihilation.” According to a recent United Nations report, over a million species are currently at risk of extinction. Researchers estimate that, if not for ESA protections, 291 species would have gone extinct since the law’s passage in 1973.