US Fish and Wildlife has proposed the removal of 21 species from the Endangered Species Act list because they have gone extinct. The species removed are a mix of flora and fauna. The agency director said the removal was a "wake up call" notifying us that conservation of imperiled species must occur before it is too late. The ESA is now fifty years old. It did not remove the ivory-billed woodpecker despite repeated conclusions that the large, distinct woodpecker is now extinct. Some unverified observations of the bird in the
Okeefenokee Swamp have been made in the past.
[image: Bachman's warbler]More than 100 species have been delisted under the Act based on official recovery or reclassified from endangered to threatened. It is credited with saving 99% of listed species from extinction. The final rule of delisting based on extinction was published in the Federal Register yesterday and will go into effect thirty days after publication.
