Talk:Endangered Species Act of 1973

message: A recent anonymous editor has made numerous edits, but also attempted to suppress the paragraph on NESARC, with the following: "Deleted NESARC paragraph. There are dozens of groups working to either save or undermine the ESA. It is innapropriate to single one out in this review of the ESA. Fairness dictates all or none." Have logged-in Wikipedians vetted these changes? Let us take up the challenge and add paragraphs on all the major lobbying groups attempting to undercut the Act. --Wetman 05:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NESARC and other groups

message: This journalese invention is intended as a sarcastic pejorative. The article uses the phrase as if it were the normal expression: is this indicative? --Wetman 01:47, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The "God Squad"

message: Since 1973, only 33 species have been delisted, seven because they went extinct and 12 more because they should not have been listed in the first place. Six more may be cases of data error, which is certainly the case with the gray whale and American alligator. The brown pelican’s and Arctic peregrine falcon’s recoveries have far more to do with the ban on the insecticide DDT than with the Endangered Species Act.
17 extinct
12 should not have been listed
+6 data error
=35, not 33. Is this a typo? arithmetic error? what?
Recheck your math, 7-delisted for extinctiom (not 17, like you stated in your math), 12 for mislisted, 6 for data error, and 2 for the ban of DDT. 7+12+6+2=27, which leaves 6 that have been removed from the list because they have succesfully been rehabilitated.
: We now can see at least one person watched Penn & Teller's Bulls**t. I was wondering if they got their facts correct or not. 68.55.6.178 (talk) 06:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arithmetic 

message: Is it me, or is the whole section on whether or not the ESA has been a success or a failure overly one-sided? I don't necessarily agree that the act has not been a success. While very few species have been delisted, it is also true that very few species have gone extinct, and I believe more listed have shown recovery than have shown decline. If the ESA's purpose is to work promptly, then it may be considered a failure. However, recovery of an endangered or rare species can be a slow process. If the ESA's purpose is to prevent species from going extinct and to promote eventual recovery, then it has been, by and large, a success. 
--Gradient 19:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've addded NPOV and expert attention tags. See WP:NPOV for Wikipedia policies regarding this kind of contribution.
This section is a rant by ESA opponents. Its statements are alternatively uncited, poorly cited, provably incorrect, or unverifiable opinion. I considered deleting the entire section, but the proper response is probably to edit it into better shape since the topic (Is the ESA Successful) has merit. Luckily, there have been a number of scientific articles and at least one GAO report in the past few years that have addressed the issue head on. I will try to find time to summarize them. 69.19.14.36 19:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree this section smells of Save Our Species Alliance. I've added a number of counter-examples but haven't removed the propaganda as of yet. Tomtefarbror 20:34, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is a nice addition, but how about adding some citations.  Also, please look again at your final remark that no species have gone extinct.  I was looking yesterday at FWS list of species that had several listed species that had gone extinct.  Perhaps these were already gone or going before the ESA, but that needs clarification RichWoodward 01:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks RichWoodward. The information I've added is taken from the Center for Biological Diversity recovery trends page I've linked in the external links section.  Tomtefarbror 11:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We're getting closer.  A footnote to this source should be provided at the top of the section. Further, your statement that no species have gone extinct contradicts statements earlier in the article and the data at http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/DelistingReport.do.  Can you add the correct citation?  I would make the change myself, but I haven't learned how to to put in citations correctly. RichWoodward 22:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Success or failure 

message: you should tell more about what is happening today and before.
people will get more info and will be more interested in helping and volonteering in activities to help —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.138.100.252 (talk) 17:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  endangered species act (General comments) 

message: What happens if a coroporation or individual violates the ESA?  What are the penalties?  Is it a felony?  --zandperl 13:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consequences to violation? 

message: The Executive branch has successfully intervened to undermine the Endangered Species Act. Federal biologists determined that at the Klamath region in Oregon, the Endangered Species Act left the government no choice: water could not be cut off from the river because the survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake. In 2001, the vice president's office intervened on the behalf of farmers needing the irrigation water, and, according to aides, Dick Cheney set in motion a process to challenge the scientific conclusions reached by the federal scientists. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.
Wow, that's some great NPOV (sarcasm) --MKFreeberg 13:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a close call, I immediately removed the link as you have a strong conflict of interest, I was going to reinstate it, but having checked WP:ELNO I decided not to. ELNO number 11 says we should avoid "Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority. (This exception for blogs, etc, controlled by recognized authorities is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for people.)" Because you do not appear to satisfy WP:BIO your link is not worthy of inclusion. As the writer, number 4 "Links mainly intended to promote a website. See external link spamming." also applies. Sorry, your link cannot be included. Smartse (talk) 22:02, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Government Attempts to Undermine 

message: I've read the entire article, and so far as I can tell, the basic proceedure goes something like this:
* nomination for being put on the list
* consideration is taken, especially regards the land on which the species lives
* if the proceedure is successful, the animal is added to the list
is that it? being on the list doesn't actually do anything? 
the article would lead one to believe that the act is purely informative, and that I can feel free to go out hunting for whatever animals I find on the list .. using the list as a "todo" list if I were so inclined. This article needs to answer the question: What specifically are all the legally prescribed consequences of a species being listed? --173.66.61.78 (talk) 01:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  what does it do? 

message: Why is this Act important?
: Because it gives students like you exciting topics to write research papers about!  ;) AgnosticAphid talk 01:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Esa 

message: The first sentence references 7 U.S.C. § 136, but this appears to have no relationship to the ESA.  16 USC 1531 is the correct reference for the ESA.  Is there a reason that the 7 USC reference is in here?  64.9.62.197 (talk) 21:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inappropriate USC reference 

message: I don't know for sure, but I think the following statement is incorrect (in the "Safe Habor" section of the article):
The landowner agrees to alter the property to benefit or even attract a listed or proposed species in exchange for assurances that the FWS will permit future "takes" above a pre-determined level.
Suggested correction:
The landowner agrees to alter the property to benefit a listed species on the following conditions: 1) that the FWS authorizes incidental take of species that may result from actions undertaken by the landowner under the Safe Harbor Agreement, and 2) that the FWS will not require any additional or different management activities without the landowner's consent. 
ScottS (talk) 17:26, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Safe Harbor: benefits to landowner 

message: There is a list of mammals and birds affected by the act, and a list of arthropods affected by the act, but not a list of PLANTS affected by the act.  Shall I remedy this issue, or is it not of major importance to list these plants?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Granstund (talk • contribs) 14:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists of affected species 

message: Hi everyone, I'm a senior wildlife biology student and I was assigned to edit an article. I have taken a wildlife policy class and have have added the information and reference about CITES to the first paragraph. I thought is was important to show why the ESA came to be and link this articles with the CITES article. I hope that I did this correctly as I'm a new editor and didn't step on any toes. Tperkins2 (talk) 16:37, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: New info edit

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Endangered Species Act. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100326130813/http://www.fws.gov:80/Endangered/factsheets/delisting.pdf to http://www.fws.gov/endangered/factsheets/delisting.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100406020407/http://www.fws.gov:80/endangered/hcp/ to http://www.fws.gov/Endangered/hcp/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I was hoping to find somewhere on Wikipedia a list of species that have been delisted from the ESA. Several are mentioned in this article, but not all of them. I mostly wanted to see the delistings due to recovery, but delistings due to extinction are interesting as well. Current count seems to be 34 recovered, 10 extinct, 19 delisted due to errors in listing (see here); this article claims 28 recovered which is now out of date. I'm not sure if a list of ESA delisted species should be incorporated into this article or created as a stand-alone list. If a stand-alone list is warranted, would List of species delisted under the Endangered Species Act be an appropriate title? It does seem a little strange to have a list of things no longer on a list. Plantdrew (talk) 02:43, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delisted species 

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I have just modified 3 external links on Endangered Species Act of 1973. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110203080442/http://www.epa.gov/history/admin/agency/train.htm to http://www.epa.gov/history/admin/agency/train.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20041108000216/http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/TESSBoxscore to http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/TESSBoxscore
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120828182220/http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=186cb0f38a1b1b6770e432a7eba20553&rgn=div8&view=text&node=50%3A2.0.1.1.1.2.1.1&idno=50 to http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&rgn=div8&view=text&node=50%3A2.0.1.1.1.2.1.1&idno=50
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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I have just modified 4 external links on Endangered Species Act of 1973. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070728035106/http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/DelistingReport.do to http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/DelistingReport.do
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111014231847/http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/pub/listedAnimals.jsp to http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/pub/listedAnimals.jsp
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081207152748/http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/species/endangered_species/state_federal_list.htm to http://www.maine.gov/ifw/wildlife/species/endangered_species/state_federal_list.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120828182220/http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=186cb0f38a1b1b6770e432a7eba20553&rgn=div8&view=text&node=50%3A2.0.1.1.1.2.1.1&idno=50 to http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&rgn=div8&view=text&node=50%3A2.0.1.1.1.2.1.1&idno=50
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I notice that there is a redirect here from 
Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966.
I am wondering if Endangered Species Act of 1969
should also be a merge candidate?  I started doing
some cleanup work on it and then began to wonder if
it would be better to redirect it here. There is a lot of duplication and not a lot of citation over there. Thoughts? If it doesn't make sense to merge them, what could be done to improve the other page? Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 19:13, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible merge?  

message: This page should get move protected as it has no reason to be moved.  Any move of this page would be disruptive.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MinecraftPlayer2 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: We do not preemptively protect articles because someone might do something in the future.  We protect articles where there is a history of disruptive activity.  ~ GB fan 20:21, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move Protection Request 

message: This article needs to be updated to reflect attempted changes by the Trump administration. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:47, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trump administration 

message: There seems to be some formatting messiness under the heading "Endangered Species Act." I'm fairly new and not entirely sure how best to clean this up, otherwise I would do it myself. It's still fairly legible, but still not perfect if someone were inclined to polish it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by SquonkHerder (talk • contribs) 18:33, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting Errors 

message: — Assignment last updated by Blainethesquirrel (talk) 03:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Advanced Writing Science

message: I just sent this REQUEST TO U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE via their online contact form. Perhaps somebody watching this TALK page will also try to get numbers of species data current to July 2023:
"I am a wikipedia editor who has authorization to edit pages about "climate adaptation." I also edit conservation pages. The WIKIPEDIA PAGE titled "Endangered Species Act of 1973" has a "Positive Effects" subsection that is way out of date (2019) and has a "dead link" in the first para. I tried using the ECOS website and began with numbers of species listed — but then I saw chimpanzees were included on the list. Please either do it yourself or send me (1) the actual numbers of currently listed species but only IN THE USA that are Endangered (E), and separately (2) those currently listed as Threatened (T) in the USA.  Also send me from the  history of the ESA since 1973 how many  species total have (3) been delisted because they went "extinct", (4) been delisted because they "recovered". Then, using the same number of currently listed USA species, how many  (5) have improved over the course of their history from initial listing as E to now T, and (6) how many have worsened since their initial listing from T to E.  Also, a number for any that cannot clearly be distinguished into any of those categories. THIS REQUEST IS OF HIGHEST IMPORTANCE. Thank you."
Cbarlow (talk) 14:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Positive Effects Section is way out of date and has defunct link

message: See that I am the one who posted the previous Talk topic July 2023. I just did a little editing to help improve the flow of a section. (I am a retired freelance editor for science trade books, Columbia University Press.) But I can't improve sections where I am not already an expert on aspects of the ESA (several I am on). The beginning sections are great and read professionally. But I encounter places that use modifiers like "all" and "very" and some of those have references  that don't help me ascertain if such black or white statements are factual. Below I will list some sections and items where at least a few of the 167 people I see are watching this page ought to put their best effort into helping journalists be able to rely on it — for at least getting to good, neutral references. Here they are:
=== Section: "Endangered Species Act of 1973" ===
Besides the basic facts that begin this short section, the only text that explains how this Act differed from the 1969 Act is the long para about plants that I added. This is an area in which I am expert, and I used good references. But I do not know anything else about how this act "strengthened" or in any way added to or modified what the 1969 Act already did. Please, somebody contribute basic facts and references on what else Congress felt was lacking in the 1969 act that they needed to pass a whole new Act in order to correct. Thus THE SECTION TITLE should also be changed into something like: "How the 1973 Act improved or broadened previous legislation".
As I read downward on this wikipedia page, it looks like the first para in the "Critical Habitat" section says that this piece was also a unique addition in the 1973 Act. If that is the case, then move all that basic stuff up into this early section — and, again, the emphasis in this section is just on WHAT IS NEW about the 1973 legislation that compelled Congress to take action and the press to speak so highly about its significance.
=== Section: "Continuing Need" ===
Let's ELIMINATE THIS SECTION. It is one short para. Its references are 2019 (so way out of date). And the final 2 sentences make broad statements, yet have no references.
=== Section: "Endangered Species Act" === 
This is a very poor title. I suggest it be RETITLED as "Key individuals associated with writing the 1973 Act". Then, let's do 4 things: (1) Eliminate the image. (2) Use only the content of what is now the first long para (but break it into at least 2 or 3 paras). (3) Eliminate this short para:
The stated purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect species and also "the ecosystems upon which they depend." California historian Kevin Starr was more emphatic when he said: "The Endangered Species Act of 1972 is the Magna Carta of the environmental movement."[30]
If it is true that the 1973 Act uniquely protects "the ecoystems upon which they depend" then that point should be moved up into the previous section about what was unique about this act. The quote about the Magna Carta is not trackable in the references and having one person be "more emphatic" than what was stated in the act is not wikipedia style.
(4) Let's move the entire rest of this section downward into a NEW MAJOR SECTION TITLE something like "Controversies about the 1973 Act" — and then we can do it as a fully CHRONOLOGICAL piece, using section titles that are topical and with the years highlighted. This means we would grab text from all the remaining sections that pertain to controversies and put them into this single place. (Some might be important to also keep in their existing sections, but all should be at least listed chronologically in one long main section with CONTROVERSIES in the title.
OVERALL: One more thing: I was a senior in college with the 1973 Act passed. I loved it! But I have had experiences since that time that have me see the validity of both polarized sides of many (maybe all) of the controversies. Using government edicts in a two-party democracy in order to prevent species extinctions is a "predicament" to be managed as best possible. It is not a "problem" that ever has a solution — much less a final solution. I think wikipedia editors for this page should keep this in mind. We need to adequately present and reference the controversies. Keep them simple and basically stated. We don't need to quote anybody on either side. What stimulated me to think this way was an excellent journalistic piece I read today that spelled out the controversies, referencing other journalistic sources for each topical point. That article is: "Has America’s 50-year fight to protect endangered species been successful?" and it is Yahoo News here: https://news.yahoo.com/has-americas-50-year-fight-to-protect-endangered-species-been-successful-174158115.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGCUihihk02B3M-gx1O-ogiKRJF-YJ0vNzBfuuoj8N55zIsiwgPRZNzl8xzD8ewdGGUTXTQHPxkb7c8czpbxSdbZ7lLHDyGsBZHX39wa79pXvaPIE-tQSWeM3y2Ei-w1urWvr5F3t9qLCjsMbFO1vphirRjI-Gp31Vz5qsYVMwDG
Cbarlow (talk) 14:01, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Critically Important to improve this page re 50th anniversary of ESA Dec 2023

message: This is a very poor title. I suggest it be RETITLED as "Key individuals associated with writing the 1973 Act". Then, let's do 4 things: (1) Eliminate the image. (2) Use only the content of what is now the first long para (but break it into at least 2 or 3 paras). (3) Eliminate this short para:
The stated purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect species and also "the ecosystems upon which they depend." California historian Kevin Starr was more emphatic when he said: "The Endangered Species Act of 1972 is the Magna Carta of the environmental movement."[30]
If it is true that the 1973 Act uniquely protects "the ecoystems upon which they depend" then that point should be moved up into the previous section about what was unique about this act. The quote about the Magna Carta is not trackable in the references and having one person be "more emphatic" than what was stated in the act is not wikipedia style.
(4) Let's move the entire rest of this section downward into a NEW MAJOR SECTION TITLE something like "Controversies about the 1973 Act" — and then we can do it as a fully CHRONOLOGICAL piece, using section titles that are topical and with the years highlighted. This means we would grab text from all the remaining sections that pertain to controversies and put them into this single place. (Some might be important to also keep in their existing sections, but all should be at least listed chronologically in one long main section with CONTROVERSIES in the title.
OVERALL: One more thing: I was a senior in college with the 1973 Act passed. I loved it! But I have had experiences since that time that have me see the validity of both polarized sides of many (maybe all) of the controversies. Using government edicts in a two-party democracy in order to prevent species extinctions is a "predicament" to be managed as best possible. It is not a "problem" that ever has a solution — much less a final solution. I think wikipedia editors for this page should keep this in mind. We need to adequately present and reference the controversies. Keep them simple and basically stated. We don't need to quote anybody on either side. What stimulated me to think this way was an excellent journalistic piece I read today that spelled out the controversies, referencing other journalistic sources for each topical point. That article is: "Has America’s 50-year fight to protect endangered species been successful?" and it is Yahoo News here: https://news.yahoo.com/has-americas-50-year-fight-to-protect-endangered-species-been-successful-174158115.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGCUihihk02B3M-gx1O-ogiKRJF-YJ0vNzBfuuoj8N55zIsiwgPRZNzl8xzD8ewdGGUTXTQHPxkb7c8czpbxSdbZ7lLHDyGsBZHX39wa79pXvaPIE-tQSWeM3y2Ei-w1urWvr5F3t9qLCjsMbFO1vphirRjI-Gp31Vz5qsYVMwDG
Cbarlow (talk) 14:01, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section: "Endangered Species Act" 

message: The four main sections are now: History • New Features of the 1973 Act • Challenges and Controversies • Section-by-Section Summaries of the 1973 Act.
Then I took all the tangle of text and section heads and reworked them into this new, simple set of categories. I did little of no editing on all those items I needed to move around — so please, somebody come in now and work carefully through each section. They need to be professionalized before the 50th Anniversary of the Act in December. And they need to have good references and have those references be up to date. PLEASE HELP WITH THIS!
Cbarlow (talk) 16:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  I REORGANIZED THE WHOLE PAGE into just 4 high-level section titles 

message: I think we need to review the article, I notice some info are in the wrong sections like critical habitat in Challenges and Controversies section, it should be on Section 4! I think the one of the editors made a mistake. Song4Life (talk) 04:37, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add a short, legal description of critical habitat in section 4, but the way it already appears in the NEW FEATURES OF THE 1973 ACT section is where this version should stay. Critical habitat was not only a new feature for the 1973 act, but as I just fleshed out this morning, it was the key controversy in the Dusky Gopher Frog case of 2018 and in the 2022 buckwheat v. lithium mine controversy. So it is important to have it already described before the controversy section. Cbarlow (talk) 15:45, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Review! 

message: Go to that section and see that I added more species-specific controversies, in chronological order, and with good references. So that is why I feel justified in having altered the section title to "Chronological List of Species Controversies". I WILL WAIT 2 DAYS AND THEN I WILL DELETE THE ENTIRE RES OF THE SECTION. The rest of the section was not written by me, and it is poorly referenced and entails political struggles between different presidencies, and is thus already out of date. Wikipedia readers are best served by showing the controversies as they appear for particular species — and each of those species already has a wikipedia page where readers can go to begin to learn more. So if any of the page watchers really cares about that section, then go in and bring it up to wikipedia standards over the next two days — or post here asking for a delay. Otherwise I will make the deletion. Cbarlow (talk) 15:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Much of the material you deleted is long-standing and as such you should find consensus before mass deleting it. I'm going to restore parts of the section that are not too out of date (2019).--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:28, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Chronological List of Controversies" is now species-specific 

message: This is within the "Challenges and Controversies" main section. I spent a lot of time on this today, and here is what I wrote in the "History" tab:
I did a major reorganization of this section, as so many authors have contributed material that it had lost a sense of logical flow and was sometimes repetitive. I believe I have retained all existing references, and also put references for two long existing passages that had no reference at the end. FEEL FREE TO RESPONSIBLY EDIT and thereby improve this section! I believe it currently is balanced in describing controversies.Cbarlow (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Reorganization of "Critical Habitat" subsection 

message: It you look up this Talk page to about July 2023, you will see that I started doing a lot of edits and text contributions about that time, escalating in November to a complete reorganization into 4 main section heads. This was all because I felt this wikipedia page deserved coming up to wikipedia standards before the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (December 28, 2023) would garner more views. Well, nobody stepped in to help make improvements. The only interventions were small helpful ones, plus the usual stopping me from deleting something, and one that advised me to stop editing so much, but was then retracted. So today marked the end of my feeling the need, and having the motivation, to do any more edits. In the 90s, while I was writing science books, I also did freelance copyediting for Columbia University Press, so I know how important copyediting is. That's what I finished today.
TWO REQUESTS: I feel that all but 2 parts of this page are now up to wikipedia standards. So please, somebody else come in and handle whatever needs to be done to these subsections of the Level 1 section called "Challenges and Controversies":
• EFFECTIVENESS - That section had the original long bulleted list of species names and numbers that are surely way outdated now. I played it safe by not trying to delete it. But I sure wasn't going to spend my time trying to update it. Worse, there was already a CITATION TEMPLATE hidden there, because whoever put that list in didn't bother to put in a reference. I will not personally risk being "cancelled" by deleting it myself. But until somebody gives it a reference (and, ideally, updates the population numbers) it will stand in the way of this page being regarded as "good" by wikipedia standards.
• REVERSALS IN POLICY TRACK PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS - I tried to delete this entire short part that was original, as (a) it is now outdated, and (b) it unnecessarily provides details that are too politically oriented. Somebody cancelled me and reverted it back immediately. So the best I could do was give it this level-2 title and find a reasonable place to include it in this list. I agree now that the topic is important, but the level of detail should be trimmed way back — and updated to show that the Biden administration was able to fully restore the way the regulations had been before the Trump administration changed them. BTW: I disapprove of using stand-alone last names of presidents in wikipedia pages. Earlier, someone had used the term on this page "Reagan administration." This subsection should be amended to do as well. But again, I refuse to work on something that needs a lot of help to meet wikipedia standards, when it is so easy for someone to just come in and cancel me.
ONE DISCLAIMER: In my November 2023 provision of new section and subsection titles and reorganizing of this page, I left the last part untouched, which is Level 1 title: "Section-by-Section Summaries of the 1973 Act." A quick perusal showed it looked well-written and referenced. But because I deem it to be of interest mainly to lawyers or law students, I never did anything to it. I work on wikipedia pages to get the science up-to-date, well-referenced, and written in a popular science style that most viewers would find helpful and easy enough to read. So, if this page ever is recommended to be reviewed to garner "GOOD" status in wikipedia, somebody will need to at least do a copyedit through that final section-by-section part of the page.
Note: After a few days, I will alert my contact at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to finally take a read through it. If that happens, there may be more changes. But, as you can glean from the content of this page, the agency is already overwhelmed with too much to do, based on its staffing and funding at this time. So I doubt it will get a more professional read than what I myself have just done. Cbarlow (talk) 17:10, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final copyedit done on all but the last of 4 main sections

message: It's stated that the whitebark pine was listed on 2022. But when I checked, it was actually listed in 2023 not in 2022. I just wanted to point this out so I think it's need fixing. Here's the evidence https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species/1748  Song4Life (talk) 22:06, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whitebark Pine