January 15, 2021 By David Murray
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced January 12 that the interior least tern has officially been taken off the endangered species list.
When the interior least tern was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1985, there were fewer than 2,000 birds and only a few dozen nesting sites scattered across a once-expansive range that covered America’s Great Plains and Lower Mississippi Valley. Today, the agency says, there are more than 18,000 interior least terns at more than 480 nesting sites in 18 states.
The action is important to waterways interests because the job of protecting nesting sites of the interior least tern was given by Congress to the Corps of Engineers. To protect threatened species like the interior least tern, along with fish species on the list, like the pallid sturgeon, the Corps made changes to waterways structures on the Missouri River and
After more than three decades of conservation partnerships inspired by the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is celebrating the delisting of the interior least tern due to recovery. According to the best available science, the diverse efforts of local, state and federal stakeholders across the interior least tern’s 18-state range have helped ensure populations are healthy, stable and increasing into the foreseeable future. The tern will continue to be protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
“The Trump Administration and Secretary Bernhardt are committed to the recovery of our Nation’s imperiled species,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith. “Dozens of states, federal agencies, tribes, businesses and conservation groups have worked tirelessly over the course of three decades to successfully recover these birds.”