Extinction Crisis
At CFS, we work to curb the extinction crisis by challenging the harmful inputs and practices of industrial agriculture and promoting regenerative agricultural systems that protect and preserve species and their habitat.
The Sixth Mass Extinction
We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction crisis. Wildlife and plants are suffering unprecedented declines and extinction rates in the United States and across the globe, with extinction rates 1,000 times higher than normal. A global assessment found that extinction rates are accelerating and more than 1 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction worldwide. Unfortunately, no group of species is spared:
- Insects are experiencing drastic rates of decline worldwide, potentially driving 40% of the world’s insect species to extinction in the next few decades.
- At least 40% of bird populations worldwide are declining, with more than half of North American bird species suffering declines, leading to a net loss of 2.9 billion breeding birds since 1970.
- Nearly half of all amphibian species worldwide are experiencing population declines and at least 3% of frog species have already gone extinct.
- Almost one in five of the world’s reptiles are threatened with extinction and approximately 61% of turtles worldwide are threatened or already extinct.
- Nearly one-third of all freshwater fish are threatened by extinction and one-quarter of sharks and rays are threatened worldwide.
While the drivers of this ongoing crisis are many, industrial agriculture plays an outsized role in species declines and biodiversity loss. Industrial agriculture contributes to species declines through habitat destruction and fragmentation, overapplication of pesticides and fertilizers, and through its contributions to the climate crisis.
At Center for Food Safety, we work to ensure government agencies comply with their duties to protect endangered species and to secure Endangered Species Act protections for species imperiled by the effects of industrial agriculture.
Pesticides and the Extinction Crisis
Pesticides contribute to species declines and extinction threats in many ways. While they can directly kill a plant or animal, many impacts are less visible, sublethal effects that can impact things like a species’ behavior, ability to reproduce, or weaken their immune systems. Indirect effects are also common, through various means such as loss of habitat and changes in the food web.
With hundreds of different pesticides being used each year, native plants and wildlife are likely to be exposed to many during their lifetime. Multiple pesticides are often applied to the same crops, and some are applied simultaneously in mixtures, leading to even more potential for harm as the impacts of each may be additive, or the use of different pesticides together may even be more harmful than the sum of their individual effects.
While pesticides are generally created for the purpose of controlling a particular “pest” species, many pesticides have far-reaching impacts well beyond the “pest” or even the class of organisms they are meant to target. Biocides may be a more appropriate term to describe them because they harm many more species than the pests they are supposed to target.
The exposure of wildlife to pesticides can happen in a multitude of ways and is not limited to wildlife living in or closely adjacent to agricultural fields. Runoff of pesticides into streams, rivers, and other aquatic ecosystems has greatly contributed to declines of fish, as well as aquatic invertebrates and plants throughout the world. For example, the top two most used herbicides in the U.S., glyphosate and atrazine, are extremely harmful to amphibians and fish in addition to the weeds they are intended to target.
There are numerous species currently listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that are greatly threatened by pesticide use, such as the California red-legged frog, San Joaquin kit fox, rusty-patched bumble bee, Dakota skipper, and the Indiana bat.
Pesticides pose a threat to nearly all species protected under the ESA. In fact, in recent assessments EPA determined that glyphosate and atrazine are likely to harm 93% and 56%, respectively, of all plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act.
A 2021 EPA assessment of three types of neonics found that they are likely to harm all 38 amphibian species and about three-quarters of all species protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Center for Food Safety works to secure endangered species protections for species harmed by pesticides. Along with allies, in 2014 we petitioned to list the Monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act, in large part due to the impacts of pesticides and other threats of industrial agriculture to this species. We had an initial victory in 2020, when the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service found protections for the Monarch are warranted; however, the agency has indefinitely postponed a final decision.
In 2018, CFS and allies petitioned for protections for four bumble bee species threatened by pesticides under California’s state-level Endangered Species Act. In 2023, CFS filed a new Endangered Species Act petition to protect the Iowa skipper butterfly.
CFS continues to fight to protect pollinators and other imperiled species against pesticides in court and through local and nationwide advocacy efforts, as well as to secure protections for more species harmed by pesticides.
Endangered Species Act (ESA)
More than 2,300 species of plants and animals are currently listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA, with hundreds more awaiting protections.
There is broad public support for the ESA: More than 4 in 5 Americans support it. And so far, it has been highly successful—the ESA has prevented the extinction of more than 99% of listed species.
ESA protections have also helped to bring a number of species back from the brink of extinction, allowing them to recover to the point where they no longer need the Act’s protections. This includes peregrine falcons and bald eagles, whose populations were decimated by DDT, but were ultimately brought back from the brink of extinction.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) are the expert wildlife agencies tasked with carrying out the mandates of the ESA. FWS has the primary responsibility for terrestrial and freshwater organisms and NMFS has the primary responsibility for marine wildlife. However, all federal agencies are required to work to conserve ESA-protected species, and to ensure that their actions do not jeopardize the existence of threatened or endangered species.
An “endangered” species is one that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. A “threatened” species is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future.
Once listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA, the expert wildlife agencies must designate critical habitat and create a recovery plan for the species. The ESA’s most significant legal protections come from its consultation requirements for federal agency actions and its prohibition of “take” of an ESA-listed species:
- Consultation: All federal agencies are required to consult with the expert wildlife agencies to ensure that their actions will not jeopardize the existence of species listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA or adversely modify critical habitat.
- Take: The ESA prohibits “take” of listed species and trade in listed species. The term “take” means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.
Anyone can petition to protect a species under the ESA, as long as the petition meets a basic set of requirements.
A species may be determined to be an endangered or threatened species based on one or more of the five factors described in the Act. The five factors are:
- The present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range
- Overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes
- Disease or predation
- The inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms
- Other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence
The process to protect species under the ESA is only supposed to take two years, but in reality, there is a long waiting line for protections. From 1983 to 2014, the median wait was 12.1 years between a species’ first consideration for protections and final ESA listing. There are hundreds of petitioned species currently awaiting protections under the ESA. Much more funding is needed for the expert wildlife agencies to ensure they can work through this massive backlog, as well as to support species recovery once they are listed.
47 petitioned species have gone extinct while waiting for ESA protections. And in 2021, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to remove ESA protections from 23 species due to extinction, acknowledging that for these 23 species ESA protections had come too late, as they were either already extinct, functionally extinct, or in steep decline by the time they were listed.
Endangered Species Act Litigation
Victory • Cases with Impact • Environment and Biodiversity Defense • Biodiversity Protection • Extinction Crisis
Ensuring EPA Regulates Greenhouse Gases (Massachusetts v. EPA)
In a landmark 2007 ruling, the Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases are pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act and that EPA must determine whether those emissions endanger public health and welfare.
The decision fundamentally changed federal climate policy and remains one of the most influential environmental rulings in American history.
