Wildlife
Peregrine falcons were able to recover, but beluga whales weren’t. A group of scientists set out to find out why.
Fast, graceful and deadly — the peregrine falcon soars high above the tallest trees in search of food. The minute they find their prey, they dive, going speeds faster than any other animal on the planet can reach. Once they reach their prey, they strike — their sharp talons slicing into their prey before it can even register what is happening.
But in the 1960s, the peregrine falcon was pushed to the brink of extinction due to the extensive use of dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) as a pesticide. The peregrine falcons absorbed large amounts of DDT through eating fish and smaller birds, resulting in them developing reproductive issues — mainly laying eggs with very thin shells. Once the government became aware of the problem and learned why the peregrine falcon’s population was declining, they took action. By the end of 1990, the use of DDT was no longer permitted in Canada and the peregrine falcons were able to start recovering.
The peregrine falcon is far from the only endangered animal that has seen various types of conservation strategies employed to bring them back from the brink. The wood bison is another famous example, although to a lower degree of success.
Inspired by the success of the peregrine falcon, Laurenne Schiller, a marine conservation researcher, began to question what it is that makes certain conservation strategies work better than others. After teaming up with a group of fellow researchers, Schiller set out to find answers.
The group examined 422 species that were assessed twice by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada between 2000 and 2019. Their study, published in FACETS, found only eight — one being the peregrine falcon — of these 422 species saw an increase in population and a decrease in extinction risk.
The eight species that met the criteria for successful recovery had one thing in common.
“We found the one thing that really determines whether extinction risk is going down and population size is going up is whether we (conservation practitioners) and government laws were able to properly halt that cause of decline and enable those species to recover,” says Schiller.
Through their research, Schiller and her team were able to determine that the road to recovery is a three-step process. The first is to understand what exactly is causing a species to decline.
“If you don’t know why a group of animals or plants is declining, you’re kind of flying in blind,” says Schiller. “Once you can identify that cause of decline, you’re in really good shape.” The second step is to find a way to halt the decline.
“Historically in the late 1800s, early 1900s, many of these species were targeted for, in the case of whales, their oil; in the case of sea otters, their pelts. And so we knew what was causing the decline. We’re taking too many of them, we’re overhunting,” says Schiller. “Over many years, regulations through the International Whaling Committee and other organizations were able to halt that cause of decline. And then, once whaling and overhunting stopped, those animals were able to recover.”
The third step is to ensure that once the cause of the decline is stopped, the animals are given the best conditions to recover.
But, as Schiller’s research group found, this has only been successfully done to eight of the 422 species that were assessed. So, what’s happening with the remaining 414 species?
Many of these species do have interventions put in place to prevent extinction. These interventions just aren’t enough to enable recovery.
“Part of the message we hope to convey is we need to move beyond just designating critical habitat,” says Schiller. “Designating critical habitat is the first step. We need active restoration of that habitat, and we need to make sure that those threats that are causing population decline do not reach the animals within their protected habitat.”
Beluga whales were given a protected area in the St. Lawrence River and Schiller says while this is great, the reasons the species is endangered — the big one being pollution — can still be present within the area.
“When you think about the things that are affecting them, which is noise pollution and chemical pollution, these are things that permeate protected area boundaries because it’s water,” says Schiller. “It’s not necessarily being as effective as it could be, because many of the things that are not enabling them to recover are still present in the area to a big enough degree.”
For now, Schiller and her research team not only hope their study can help lead to more species seeing a successful recovery akin to the peregrine falcon’s, but also for more people to better understand it’s not just the government’s responsibility to protect the land and animals.
“Everybody, whether you’re renting an apartment in downtown Vancouver or you’ve got 50 acres in Nova Scotia, everyone can do something to help wildlife in their area,” says Schiller. “It’s not passing the buck on to us, but it’s saying that we need to help as well if this is something that we genuinely acknowledge is important.”
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