The ESA has been a particular target of the Trump administration, which since January has issued a series of executive orders claiming burdensome regulations prevent development and impede “energy domination.” Two of this year’s orders specifically tell agencies to rewrite ESA rules, potentially allowing fossil fuel projects to move forward without undergoing the customary environmental reviews.

But for Burgum and other conservatives, the problem is that the law itself has failed to help most species recover, with rigid regulations that do little to encourage cooperation and investment. Experts including scientists and legal scholars instead say the law itself is sound but that it has suffered from a lack of funding and political will over the years.

“We continue to wait until species are in dire straits before we protect them,” said David Wilcove, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. “That makes recovery far more difficult and expensive.”

The Law Is Designed to Save Species, Not House Them

In its more than four decades, the ESA has certainly had its share of high-profile failures. But conservationists and scientists point out that the law’s overall record is one of prevention, not extinction. Since 1973, just 26 species have been declared extinct on the federal books, out of more than 1,700 that have been listed at some point. By comparison, at least 47 species are known to have gone extinct after being proposed for listing, but before they received protections.

“The ESA works more like a critical care unit than a hotel,” said Wilcove. “It’s as though we built a great hospital but never funded enough doctors or equipment.”

Arguably the most famous example of the ESA’s success is the bald eagle. After its populations plunged in the 1960s due to pesticide use and habitat destruction, the banning of DDT and subsequent habitat protections under the ESA starting in 1978 led to a resurgence. In 2007, the bald eagle became the first animal delisted under the ESA as it approached 10,000 nesting pairs nationwide.

The story of American alligators and Steller sea lions shows a similar trajectory.

Difficulties Come on Private Property

The ESA applies to species on public lands as well as private, which critics say makes it onerous for landowners who are denied the “free market” use of their land. More than two-thirds of listed species are found on private property, and about 10 percent are found only on private lands.

“If a listed species is on your land, your ability to use that land is going to be limited and you can be prosecuted,” said Jonathan Adler, a professor of environmental law at the William & Mary University School of Law. “That discourages landowners from cooperating.”

Research has suggested this can lead to “perverse incentives.” In one study, for example, land managers clear-cut timber where red-cockaded woodpeckers lived early to head off future federal restrictions on habitat.

Congress has over the years established tax breaks and conservation easements, which allow landowners to receive compensation for protecting habitats. But such programs have waned in the past decade, causing many conservationists to raise the alarm.

Saving the ESA Itself

The ESA used to have bipartisan support but is now one of the most frequently litigated environmental laws in the U.S. Past efforts to weaken the ESA have come from the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, only to be reversed by their successors. Conservationists fear that combination of the Trump administration’s aggressive rollbacks and a more conservative-leaning Supreme Court could leave the ESA in a weakened state, with climate change and habitat loss creating new pressures on species.

Andrew Mergen, a professor at Harvard Law School who spent nearly 30 years litigating ESA cases for the Justice Department, said the main problem with the law is a lack of resources rather than too many regulations. “The law has prevented extinctions,” he said. “The real challenge is committing enough funding and political will to help species recover, not dismantling the protections that keep them alive.”

Is Recovery Possible?

The Roanoke logperch is the first species to be recovered and removed from the endangered list by the Trump administration. Burgum, in a recent statement, called it “living proof that the Endangered Species Act is no longer Hotel California” and is “giving back our country’s most precious resources so that future generations can enjoy them as well.”

Conservationists are less convinced, noting that it took nearly 40 years of dam removals, wetland restoration and a $2 million reintroduction effort for the fish to be delisted. Many of those initiatives started long before Trump took office and say its a signal of what more targeted ESA investment could accomplish.

“The optimistic part is that we know how to save species when we invest in them,” Wilcove said. “The question is whether we’ll make that commitment.”