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Originally Posted by snowgyre
For one, the Endangered Species Act of the United States is a fairly unique piece of legislation and should not (cannot) be compared to international endangered species legislation because international 'legislation' is all talk and very little bite. Outside of customs, it's virtually impossible to enforce any of those laws internationally.
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That's definitely true.
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Internally, the Endangered Species Act has done a lot of good. It forces the U.S. Government to take action (for better or for worse) for those species listed. That means that all "take", which includes hunting, illegal collecting, and even habitat destruction is highly regulated. This is not to say that the Feds are the most effective agency for dealing with endangered species management (this is currently a subject of great debate within the wildlife profession), but at the very least we have a legal course of action in place for those species.
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Okay, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 has been in effect for 38 years [which is not to say that other conservation efforts have not taken place before it], in that time, how many species do you believe have benefitted [seen a substantial increse in population] from it? Of those, how would you attribute their population increases to their protection under the Endangered Species Act?
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Extinct in the wild means that the animal is no longer filling its ecological role. Survival in captivity means that we have failed. The U.S. Endangered Species Act is meant to prevent that. Granted, with critically endangered species some captive breeding is probably necessary, but by no means should we look down on endangered species legislation simply because it ties our hands to own these animals in private collections.
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You are correct, from an ecological standpoint, extinct in the wild does equate to failure. But why let an animal go completely extinct? It's wishful thinking to believe that a third world country with a rapidly expanding population is going to take their native fauna into consideration when expanding into the little wilderness they have left. But here in America, we can take that fauna into consideration and preserve it where we can, in captivity.
Private collections tend to be much more effective than public facilities in producing stock. If we want more of these animals in existence, allowing everyone to trade these animals would undoubtably be our best bet. I'm not suggesting we should take more of them from the wild, people are already breeding them in captivity, just that we should be able to trade them freely in the U.S. That won't negatively impact wild populations at all, so why not?
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Personally, I have a LOT of problems with owning endangered species. It encourages illegal trade of those organisms and increases the risk of extinction, not ameliorate it. When you see an [eastern] indigo snake for sale for over $1000, how many people can look beyond the dollar signs of that snake that just so happens to crawl through their backyard? No harm done if you just take one animal from the wild, right? It's that kind of thinking that undoes your argument, and in second and third world countries where there is real starvation, you simply can't instill wildlife conservation values in those who are desperate to survive. We have become spoiled in the United States because we have relatively effective laws and law enforcement in place that we often don't see the fruits of our own labors and restraint. Survival in captivity isn't survival at all.
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Eastern indigos are not going extinct because people collected them from the wild, they are going extinct due to habitat loss. Illegal collection isn't going to change that.