US claims success in efforts to save endangered species

Obama administration puffs its chest out over apparent victories in removing animals from endangered species list at accelerated pace

Oliver Milman

Friday 22 April 201619.20 BSTLast modified on Friday 22 April 201620.05 BST 

The world may be hurtling to the worst extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out, but the US is claiming success in its own efforts to prevent species following the path of titanosaurs, dodos and passenger pigeons.

A total of 34 species have been removed from federal Endangered Species Actprotections since 1978 due to them recovering, rather than becoming extinct. This pace has accelerated under Barack Obama’s presidency – 16 of the 34 recovered species have been delisted during the current administration.

Animals as diverse as the brown pelican, gray wolf and Concho water snake have been pulled back from the brink and removed from the at-risk list. The Louisiana black bear, famous for one of its number being spared by Theodore Roosevelt on a hunting trip which prompted the name “teddy bear”, was officially deemed no longer at risk in March.

In Obama’s final year in power, his administration has started to puff its chest out over apparent victories in preventing wildlife loss.

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New report illustrates Europe conservation success stories

December 2013: The white-tailed eagle, one of the largest birds of prey in the world, is just one of 37 mammal and bird species that have recovered over the past 50 years, the Wildlife Comeback in Europe report, organised by the Rewilding Europe, shows.

The resulting report describes how, why and where 37 mammal and bird species have recovered, providing important lessons for the conservation of these and other species for the future.

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Last Wild Horse Sees First Artificial Insemination Success

In a first for scientists, a foal of the world's last true wild horse has been born by way of artificial insemination.

The birth of a female Przewalski's horse (pronounced "cha-VAL-skee") on July 27 at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Virginia was celebrated as a major achievement for the survival of the endangered species, once thought to have been extinct in the wild.

Credit: Doloros Reed, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

"It seems reasonable to assume that reproduction for the Przewalski’s horse would be similar to domestic horses, but it simply isn’t the case," Budhan Pukazhenthi, a reproductive physiologist with SCBI, said in a statement.

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