The Ethics Of The Endangered Species Act

In today’s society everyone seems to have an opinion on everything. It seems the more uninformed one is on a subject the more strongly the feel about it. Occasionally there are those who address issues they are well informed on in a well-organized and civilized manner, weighing both the pros and cons of the side they advocate. Brandon M. Middleton does an exceptional job of this in his article on the Endangered Species Act, where he talks about the effectiveness of the Federal government’s current involvement with endangered species.

Mr. Middleton, a journalist, compiled an article describing, in his opinion, the flaws of the Endangered Species Act. He then attempts to back his opinion with studied analyses, researched facts, and testimonies. To summarize Middleton’s (2011) perspective, “Rather than provide incentives for conservation and environmental stewardship, the Endangered Species Act punishes those whose property contains land that might be used as habitat by endangered and threatened species” (p. 79). This quote is broad and generalized yet draws in readers and forces Middleton to spend the rest of the article backing this statement with more logic based facts.

The author reasons with his thesis by focusing on three main points: lenient standard for becoming a citizen plaintiff, litigation can bring handsome rewards, and endangered species act being imposed and all costs. In section titled The Endangered Species Act’s Lenient Standard for Becoming a Citizen Plaintiff Middleton (2011) paraphrases the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by saying, “The Endangered Species Act’s otherwise minimal pleading requirements have resulted [in]… a ‘cycle of litigation’ that is ‘endless, and is very expensive, thus diverting resources ...

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...hor’s perspective. Hopefully they will be able to take away that the author cares about all species and just wants them to be defended properly without money getting in the way. Whether the reader agrees or disagrees with his suggested methods on fixing the issue isn’t nearly as important as realizing that endangered animals should be defended properly. The last point the reader may take away is that human lives are more important than animal lives, yet animal lives are more important than human convenience.

In conclusion, Middleton did an excellent job compiling an article describing the currently flaws in the Endangered Species Act. Despite the authors many good points, I believe his solutions were lacking and rewriting of the act is needed. However, it was nice to see an author coherently write on a subject he seemed well informed on in a fairly non-biased manner.