Question: What is the average time of completion of an Endangered Species Recovery Plan?
Answer: approximately six years

Question: Which president had the most completed Recovery Plans during their administration?
Answer: Clinton (72)

Question: What is the primary consideration for determining if projects may be carried out in areas with endangered species?
Answer: whether a listed species will be harmed by the action and, if so, how the harm can be minimized

Question: If a species may be harmed, who holds final say on whether the project may proceed?
Answer: the Endangered Species Committee

Question: How many members are on the ad hoc panel that allows project exemptions for cases where a species may harmed?
Answer: seven

Question: How many votes must be in favor of the exemption in order to award the exemption?
Answer: Five

Question: What is one specific requirement regarding the make-up of the exmeption panel?
Answer: at least one appointee from the state where the project is to occur

Question: Who reviews exemption considerations before the Endangered Species committee?
Answer: the Forest Service, and either the FWS or the NMFS

Question: During informal consultation, what is the goal?
Answer: to determine if harm may occur

Question: What prompts the need for formal consultation?
Answer: if the harm is believed to be likely

Question: What considerations are weighed during the consultations?
Answer: whether the species will be harmed, whether the habitat will be harmed and if the action will aid or hinder the recovery

Question: How many times has the exemption process been used, as of 2009?
Answer: six

Question: What were the results of those exemption petitions?
Answer: one was granted, one was partially granted, one was denied and three were withdrawn

Question: Why is this exemption provision often considered a nonfactor?
Answer: few consultations result in jeopardy opinions

Question: How can jeopardy opinions be dissuaded?
Answer: in the identification of reasonable and prudent alternatives to avoid jeopardy.

Question: Who owns the majority of critical habitat?
Answer: non-federal property, owned by citizens, states, local governments, tribal governments and private organizations

Question: What program gives incentives to private landowners to protect species on their land?
Answer: Habitat Conservation Plan

Question: Before the amendment in 1982, under what situations could a listed species be displaced?
Answer: only for scientific or research purposes

Question: An approved HCP results in what being issued for the species?
Answer: an Incidental Take Permit (ITP)

Question: How long do ITPs last?
Answer: allow incidental takes for varying amounts of time

Question: How is the public made aware of ITP applications?
Answer: A notice of the permit application action is published in the Federal Register

Question: How long does the public have to comment on ITP applications?
Answer: 30 to 90 days

Question: What location held the first HCP?
Answer: San Bruno Mountain, California

Question: What percentage of the critical habitat was protected for the area that received the first HCP?
Answer: 87%

Question: What type of animal was being protected in the area that received the first HCP?
Answer: butterflies

Question: What 1981 court decision added to the power of HCPs and ITPs for conservation?
Answer: Palila v. Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources

Question: Who wrote the article "Searching for Consensus and Predictability: Habitat Conservation Planning under the Endangered Species Act of 1973."
Answer: Robert D.Thornton

Question: What did Thornton compare the scientific and legal advances to, from the viewpoint of the development community?
Answer: a major headache

Question: What is the name of the rule that protects the landowner if their conservation efforts fall short?
Answer: The "No Surprises" rule

Question: Why is this particular rule so controversial?
Answer: the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) loses much ability to further protect a species if the mitigation measures by the landowner prove insufficient.

Question: If the landowner fails to adequately protect the species, what penalties do they face with the "No Surprises" rule?
Answer: The landowner or permittee would not be required to set aside additional land or pay more in conservation money

Question: Who covers the cost of additional efforts if the ITP holder's efforts fall short?
Answer: The federal government would have to pay for additional protection measures

Question: What two groups are bound by a "Safe Harbor" agreement?
Answer: the private landowner and FWS

Question: In exchange for altering the property to a more beneficial state, what does the landowner gain from the Safe Harbor agreement?
Answer: assurances that the FWS will permit future "takes" above a pre-determined level

Question: Which presidential administration developed Safe Harbor policy?
Answer: the Clinton Administration

Question: Are Safe Harbor agreements and ITPs mutually exclusive?
Answer: A landowner can have either a "Safe Harbor" agreement or an Incidental Take Permit, or both.

Question: How do Candidate Conservation Agreements differ from Safe Harbor agreements?
Answer: Candidate Conservation Agreements With Assurances(CCA) are meant to protect unlisted species

Question: How does a CCA help protect a private landowner?
Answer: if, in the future the unlisted species becomes listed, the landowner will not be required to do more than already agreed upon in the CCA.

Question: How does a CCA impact unlisted species?
Answer: enhance or maintain habitat of unlisted species which are declining and have the potential to become threatened or endangered

Question: What animal species was delisted in August 2008?
Answer: the Virginia northern flying squirrel

Question: How long had the squirrel been listed as endangered?
Answer: listed since 1985

Question: Which president signed an Act directing the delisting of the Northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolf?
Answer: President Obama

Question: As of September 2012, how many species had been delisted due to recovery?
Answer: twenty-eight

Question: Of the ten species removed due to extinction, how many are believe to have already been extinct when listed?
Answer: seven

Question: How many species have been downgraded from endangered to threatened status?
Answer: Twenty-five

Question: How many species were delisted due to discoveries of new populations?
Answer: six

Question: How did a land owner impact the protected red-cockaded woodpecker species?
Answer: increased harvesting and shortened the age at which he harvests his trees to ensure that they do not become old enough to become suitable habitat

Question: What is the success rate of the list and the Endangered Species Act initiatives?
Answer: 1%

Question: What is the name given to the act of pre-emptive habitat destruction by landowners fearing a protected species?
Answer: "Shoot, Shovel and Shut-Up."

Question: How many species are currently listed?
Answer: over 2,000

Question: What is one particular industry that exploits Endangered Species Act loopholes?
Answer: exotic pet trade

Question: What is one particular loophole that aids roadside zoos and private collectors?
Answer: no provisions are made for in-state commerce

Question: What allows exploitation of interstate commerce regulations?
Answer: the ESA allows listed species to be shipped across state lines as long as they are not sold

Question: How can fake breeding loans be used to sell wildlife?
Answer: in return they can legally receive a reciprocal monetary "donation" from the receiving party.

Question: Why are there not more arrests from undercover investigations of interstate wildlife commerce?
Answer: the US Fish and Wildlife Service revealed that the agency does not have sufficient staff to perform undercover investigations