PERC Research Fellow Jonathan Wood joins Acton Line, the Acton Institute podcast, to discuss market-based solutions to recover endangered species. There are over 1,300 endangered species in the United States, from polar bears to northern spotted owls to red wolves. The Endangered Species Act has done a good job of preventing extinctions, with less than one percent of listed species having gone extinct. However, of those listed species, only three percent have actually recovered to the point of having healthy enough populations to be delisted. Wood outlines a market-based approach to getting the incentives right to ensure the Endangered Species Act can continue to do what it does well, preventing extinctions, while improving it as a tool to recover species.
