An Act to provide for the conservation of endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants, and for other purposes.
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 §§ 1531-1544.
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.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 95–632, 92 Stat. 3751, enacted November 10, 1978
Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 96–159, 93 Stat. 1225, enacted December 28, 1979
Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 97–304, 96 Stat. 1411, enacted October 13, 1982
United States Supreme Court cases
List
Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978)
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992)
Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon, 515 U.S. 687 (1995)
Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154 (1997)
National Ass'n of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U.S. 644 (2007)
Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, No. 17-71, 586 U.S. ___ (2018)
United States Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, No. 19-547, 592 U.S. ___ (2021)
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting and conserving imperiled species. 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 Supreme Court of the United States described it as "the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species enacted by any nation".[1] The purposes of the ESA are two-fold: to prevent extinction and to recover species to the point where the law's protections are not needed. It therefore "protect[s] species and the ecosystems upon which they depend" through different mechanisms. For example, section 4 requires the agencies overseeing the Act to designate imperiled species as threatened or endangered. Section 9 prohibits unlawful ‘take,’ of such species, which means to "harass, harm, hunt..." Section 7 directs federal agencies to use their authorities to help conserve listed species. The Act also 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).[2] The 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."[1] The Act is administered by two federal agencies, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).[3] FWS and NMFS have been delegated by the Act with the authority to promulgate any rules and guidelines within the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to implement its provisions.
^ ab"Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill", 437 U.S. 153 (1978) Retrieved 24 November 2015. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Government.
^U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "International Affairs: CITES" Retrieved on 29 January 2020. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
^Summary of the Endangered Species Act | Laws & Regulations | US EPA
and 24 Related for: Endangered Species Act of 1973 information
between 395 and 402 ppm. Under the EndangeredSpeciesActof1973 in the United States, species may be listed as "endangered" or "threatened". The Salt Creek...
List Critically Endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing...
Following is the list ofendangeredspecies in Pakistan. Endemic to Pakistan Testudo horsfieldii Aythya baeri Sterna acuticauda Threskiornis melanocephalus...
The EndangeredSpecies Conservation Actof 1969 (Public Law 91-135) was an expansion of the EndangeredSpecies Preservation Actof 1966 which authorized...
are likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future. Identifying, protecting, and restoring endangered and threatened species and subspecies are the...
(IUCN). It includes vulnerable (VU), endangered (EN), critically endangered (CR), and recently extinct (EX) species. It excludes near threatened (NT), data...
The EndangeredSpeciesAct (ESA) was first passed in 1973 and forms the basis of biodiversity and endangeredspecies protection in the United States. The...
for species listed as endangered under the United States EndangeredSpeciesAct (ESA) and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, not species listed...
olivacea) Critically EndangeredEndangered mammals of India Endangeredspecies Fauna of India List of amphibians of India List of Asian animals extinct...
protect endangeredspecies. Section 4(f) of the United States EndangeredSpeciesAct from 1973 directs the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce...
In 1973 the American alligator was listed as endangered under the EndangeredSpeciesActof1973. The American alligator was listed as an endangered species...
one species already extinct, more than 70 percent listed as Wildlife of Special Concern in Arizona, and over 50 percent federally listed as endangered or...
fish. As of 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has listed the subspecies as endangered under the EndangeredSpeciesActof1973. The population...
under the EndangeredSpeciesActof1973 are automatically listed as such for the state of Illinois. The Illinois EndangeredSpecies Protection Act created...
Conservation Act 1999, which is known in short as the EPBC Act. This Act has six categories: extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable...
spruce-fir moss spider is listed as endangered under the U.S. EndangeredSpeciesActof1973. This spider resembles a tiny tarantula with adults measuring...
flagship, and other surrogate species. Washington, DC: Island Press. ISBN 9781597261920. NOAA The EndangeredSpeciesActof1973 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service...
portions of northern Alabama and Georgia. First recorded in 1973, the snail darter was listed as endangered under the U.S. EndangeredSpeciesActof1973 by...
The endangeredspeciesof China may include any wildlife species designated for protection by the national government of China or listed as endangered by...
reintroduce the gray wolf into Yellowstone National Park. When the EndangeredSpeciesActof1973 was passed, the road to legal reintroduction was made clear...
Global Information
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Government.
