The snail darter, a small fish native to the Southeast whose endangered status caused a legal battle in the 1970s, is no longer imperiled, the Department of the Interior announced Tuesday.
The snail darter was listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, which led conservationists to sue to block the building of the Tellico Dam in what was at that time its only known natural habitat, the Little Tennessee River, in 1975.
In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the snail darter and conservationists. Congress would go on to pass a rider on an appropriations bill allowing the dam, and therefore its reservoir, to be built by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1979.
To protect the fish, specimens were moved into other nearby rivers, allowing the species to maintain a population.
By 1984, it had moved up from endangered to threatened on the ESA rankings. Further efforts were made in 1991 to improve its habitat to allow it to thrive.
In 2019, the two men who moved to protect the fish in the 1970s, biologist Jim Williams and attorney Zygmunt Plater, joined with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity to call for protections to be lifted, arguing it was no longer endangered.
Federal officials joined the call to delist the darter last year, ultimately leading to Tuesday’s announcement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior.
“As we approach the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2023, this little fish is emblematic of what partnerships can do to protect even the most initially controversial species. … We would like to thank the many partners, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, which made this possible,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams.
Mr. Williams concurred, and also urged people to give conservation efforts the time needed to succeed.
“The point is that the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act work. It’s taken about 50 years to start seeing some results, but it took us 100 years to destroy things. Give it time,” Mr. Williams told The Associated Press.
Mr. Plater, meanwhile, contrasted the legal challenges to the Endangered Species Act with success stories like that of the snail darter.
“Despite constant political attacks on the Endangered Species Act, the law has prevented the extinction of the snail darter and more than 1,000 other species that are under its care … thanks to the persistence of many people, the extinction of the snail darter was ultimately avoided,” Mr. Plater said in a statement from the Center for Biological Diversity.
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