Endangered Species Act passed

Bison, once plentiful, roamed the Great Plains, until hunted into near extinction. Passenger pigeons went from flocks covering square miles containing billions of birds into complete extinction once they became a cheap food source for slaves and their habitats taken over by farms. The concept of extinction had not yet been discovered when naturalists started drawing attention to the species destruction that accompanies destruction of their natural habitat.

On this day, December 28, in 1973, after President Richard Nixon’s call to combine the existing species preservation acts into one comprehensive bill, the Endangered Species Act was passed by Congress.

The bill forbids government funding or support for any projects that “jeopardize the continued existence” of threatened or endangered species, and provides a mechanism by which private citizens can prevent the government from such acts. Although many of its provisions have been diluted by subsequent administrations, awareness of human action of natural habitats was forever ingrained into popular consciousness. As California historian Kevin Starr summed it up, “The Endangered Species Act of 1982 is the Magna Carta of the environmental movement.”