Critical habitat area

Mrs. Tapps Endangered Species Act of 1973

Other short titles	Endangered Species Act of 1973
Long title	An Act to provide for the conservation of endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants, and for other purposes for the danger of these Animales.
Acronyms (colloquial)	ESA
Nicknames	Endangered Species Conservation Act
Enacted by	the 93rd United States Congress
Effective	December 27, 1973
Citations
Public law	93–205
Statutes at Large	87 Stat. 884
Codification
Titles amended	16 U.S.C.: Conservation
U.S.C. sections created	16 U.S.C. ch. 35 § 1531 et seq.
Legislative history
Introduced in the Senate as S. 1983 by Harrison A. Williams (D–NJ) on June 12, 1973 Committee consideration by Senate Commerce Committee Passed the Senate on July 24, 1973 (92–0) Passed the House on September 18, 1973 (390-12, in lieu of H.R. 37) Reported by the joint conference committee on December 19, 1973; agreed to by the Senate on December 19, 1973 (agreed) and by the House on December 20, 1973 (355–4) Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973
Major amendments
Pub.L. 95–632, 92 Stat. 3751, enacted November 10, 1978 Pub.L. 96–159, 93 Stat. 1225, enacted December 28, 1979 Pub.L. 97–304, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is one of the few dozens of US environmental laws passed in the 1970s, and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation", the ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973. The U.S. Supreme Court found that "the plain intent of Congress in enacting" the ESA "was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost." The Act is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Listing status and its abbreviations used in Federal Register and by federal agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

The near-extinction of the bison and the disappearance of the passenger pigeon helped drive the call for wildlife conservation starting in the 1900s. Ornithologist George Bird Grinnell wrote articles on the subject in the magazine Forest and Stream, while Joel Asaph Allen, founder of the American Ornithologists' Union, hammered away in the popular press. The public was introduced to a new concept: extinction.

Market hunting for the millinery trade and for the table was one aspect of the problem. The early naturalists also killed birds and other wildlife for study, personal collections and museum pieces. While habitat losses continued as communities and farmland grew, the widespread use of pesticides and the introduction of non-native species also affected wildlife.

One species in particular received widespread attention—the whooping crane. The species' historical range extended from central Canada South to Mexico, and from Utah to the Atlantic coast. Unregulated hunting and habitat loss contributed to a steady decline in the whooping crane population until, by 1890, it had disappeared from its primary breeding range in the north central United States. It would be another eight years before the first national law regulating wildlife commerce was signed, and another two years before the first version of the endangered species act was passed. The whooping crane population by 1941 was estimated at about only 16 birds still in the wild.

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