Two Decades of Species Revival

As TriplePundit marks 20 years as a newsroom, we’re reflecting on how the global sustainability space has evolved and changed, what we got right and what we didn’t, and what we can learn from all of it. Follow along with the series here.

We hear about the climate crisis daily, but the biodiversity crisis — or the loss of Earth’s stunning variety of life — is just as important. A sobering 47,000 species are threatened with extinction globally, primarily due to habitat loss, climate change, wildlife trade and invasive species. Around a quarter of all mammals, 41 percent of amphibians and roughly 12 of birds are at risk in what experts are calling the sixth mass extinction.

Amid this diversity doom and gloom lies a sparkle of hope: When communities put concerted effort behind conservation, species can and do recover.

Major conservation and restoration efforts established from the 1970s to the 1990s — like the United States Endangered Species Act and the international Convention on Biological Diversity — laid the groundwork for biodiversity protections.

In 2002, the nations behind the Convention on Biological Diversity made specific, measurable commitments to reducing biodiversity loss for the first time. Shortly after, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, commissioned by the United Nations, was released and made public the dire state of the world’s ecosystems, the potential to reverse the harm done, and the costs of continuing to strain them. Since then, a number of notable species have bounced back from dangerously low levels. Read on for some standout stories of wildlife doing unexpectedly well.

Green sea turtle turnaround

Green sea turtles are swimming giants with about the same heft as a piano. Found worldwide, they can live 70 years or more, primarily on a diet of algae and seagrass. Despite their undeniable grandeur, a thriving market for sea turtle meat, medicine and jewelry exists. They’re also threatened by egg collection, habitat loss, vessel strikes, bycatch in fishing gear and climate change.

One of the more unusual impacts of rising global temperatures is an overabundance of female sea turtles at some locations. A hatchling’s sex is determined by nest temperatures — not by genes — and warmer temperatures produce more females. Scientists are investigating solutions to the problem, such as shading, moving or even watering nests to cool them down.

In spite of these challenges, some turtle populations are gaining in numbers. For example, fisheries decimated turtle populations in Florida, and by the 1980s, only 4,000 females still nested there. With beach protection and hunting bans, the population rebounded. Now, more than 230,000 nests are scattered across the state’s sunny beaches. Bycatch reduction and international conservation measures benefit the turtles, too. Populations in Mexico and Hawaii have also recovered.

While green sea turtles are still listed on the Endangered Species list, a recent assessment found that nearly three-quarters of green sea turtle populations are now at low risk worldwide, and the global population has rebounded by nearly 30 percent since the 1970s — an encouraging sign for the recovery of these mammoth reptiles.

Saving snow leopards

About as far from the oceans as you can get, snow leopards abound. A stunning mix of fluffy fur with black spots and pale green eyes, these beautiful cats live in the mountains of central Asia. Unfortunately, they became scarce by the mid 1980s, when they were listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Habitat loss, poaching, loss of prey, and climate change are the leopard’s primary threats.

Thanks to conservation efforts, the cats are making a comeback. They were downlisted to a lower-risk category in 2017. One reason for their recovery is legal protection across their range. International organizations like IUCN, along with nonprofits like the Snow Leopard Trust, Snow Leopard Conservancy and Wildlife Without Borders, all worked to safeguard the species.

Together, they’ve created new protected areas, stemmed poaching, and reduced conflicts between leopards and herders. The Snow Leopard Trust fortifies corrals against predators and provides an insurance program to compensate herders for livestock killed by snow leopards. Even Buddhist monks pitched in by patrolling for poachers and educating local communities. Today, with a population of only around 7,500, these snowy cats aren’t out of the woods yet, but there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic for this feline’s future.

Wetlands for wood storks

In stark contrast to the snow leopard’s charisma, wood storks are marked by prodigious bills, long legs, and bald, reptilian heads. Despite their ungainly appearance, wood storks are unique. They can snap their bills shut in 25 milliseconds, one of the fastest reflexes found in vertebrates. This helps them eat, since they forage by moving their bills through water and shutting them when they encounter prey like fish, crayfish, amphibians and reptiles.

Despite their abilities, the storks’ fate was not always so rosy. Found from the U.S. down to South America, the American stork population declined severely by the late 1970s. At the time, only 5,000 breeding pairs remained, a significant drop from the 20,000 several decades earlier. Much of the Florida wetland habitat where they bred was destroyed and altered through the construction of levees, canals and floodgates.

The species was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1984, but large-scale wetland restoration, protection and creation across the Southeastern U.S. — including Florida’s Everglades — allowed the birds to recover. With a current population of over 10,000 breeding pairs, they’ve expanded their breeding range from Florida to Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. As a result, the species was downlisted to a lower-risk category in 2014.

Though they’re still menaced by habitat loss and climate change, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering removing the species from the Endangered Species list altogether. North America’s only stork has a brighter future — scaly heads and all.

Hope for humpback whales

Humpback whales are 40-ton goliaths known for their spectacular breaches and unearthly songs. Found worldwide, these mammals often migrate huge distances — up to 5,000 miles — from feeding to breeding grounds. On these journeys, whales play an important role in marine environments through fertilization. Euphemistically labeled the whale pump, their nutrient-rich defecation supports the microscopic marine algae phytoplankton, which make up the basis of the marine food web.

Regardless of the whale’s significance, commercial whaling for meat, oil and baleen in the 1800s and 1900s took a toll on the species. They were listed as endangered in 1970 under the precursor to the Endangered Species Act. Still, vessel strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, climate change and marine heatwaves threatened the species. Most populations declined by 95 percent globally in the 1980s, but an international moratorium on commercial harvesting was the species’ saving grace.

In addition to the hunting ban, whale conservationists’ efforts involved protecting habitat, reducing vessel collisions and minimizing entanglement in fishing gear. By 2016, humpback whales recovered enough that 9 out of 14 populations were delisted from the Endangered Species Act. That’s good news for one of our most iconic ocean dwellers.

Return of the wild

While we’ve driven many species to extinction, success stories like these prove the narrative can be changed — especially if management efforts start soon enough.

Since the U.S. Endangered Species Act was established, 99 percent of the species listed on it are still with us, and more than 100 species were removed or downlisted to a lower-risk category. These recoveries reward us as well as our environment. Our crops rely on pollinators like birds, bees and bats. Drugs and natural materials also come from nature. Ecosystems regulate our climate, absorb carbon dioxide emissions, and mitigate the effects of natural disasters like flooding and storms.

Species also play critical roles in their ecosystems and have an inherent right to exist, regardless of human values. And with just enough help and foresight, a species’ staying power shines through.

Image credits: Randall Ruiz/Unsplash; Olga ga/Unsplash; Pascal Mauerhofer/Unsplash; Johnathan Nightingale/Flickr; Sharp Photography/Wikimedia Commons; Geranimo/Unsplash