This makes it pertinent to ask if the Endangered Species Act of 1973 is really working. Is it saving species? Are the benefits worth the costs? Is there a better way of saving species? Is saving species all that important anyway?

My own opinion is that saving rare species and their habitat is the most important environmental problem we face, even more important than the impact of global climate change on humans (which is likely to be small though it may put more species in danger of extinction). But my belief is based on a moral value: with the exception of species that pose grave dangers to humans (such as smallpox or polio), we shouldn’t have the moral right to make species go extinct. To paraphrase former National Park Service director Newton Drury, we are not so rich we can afford to extirpate species nor so poor that we have to.