23 Amazing Conservation Efforts: Celebrating a Milestone for the Endangered Species Act

This December marks the 50^th anniversary of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, a law that works to safeguard animals and plants in danger of being lost and preserve the ecosystems where they live for future generations.

Under this law, a species may be listed as either endangered or threatened. What does this mean? Endangered species are considered at risk of extinction and threatened species are likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future. When a species is listed under the Endangered Species Act, critical habitat protections are authorized, and a species recovery plan is developed and put into action. Since this crucial law was passed in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has paved the way for countless conservation success stories, including saving 99 percent of its listed species from extinction.

As the world’s largest marine mammal hospital, The Marine Mammal Center works extensively with threatened and endangered marine mammals and is dedicated to protecting species through critical conservation initiatives. In fact, we are the only organization permitted by NOAA to rehabilitate endangered Hawaiian monk seals and one of few permitted to rehabilitate threatened Guadalupe fur seals and southern sea otters.

To celebrate this incredible 50-year milestone in 2023, we’ve created a list of 23 of our favorite wins for threatened and endangered marine mammals—life-saving conservation efforts that have been made possible thanks to compassionate people like you. You can feel proud knowing these wins are just the beginning as we continue building on the success of the Endangered Species Act by providing expert animal care, conducting vital scientific research, training leaders in the field and more.

• The endangered Hawaiian monk seal population surpassed 1,500 individuals for the first time in more than 20 years. Of the 1,500 monk seals estimated to be in the wild, nearly 30 percent are alive today directly due to conservation efforts led by NOAA and partners like the Center.
• Researchers began attaching satellite tags to marine mammals from threatened and endangered species, including Guadalupe fur seals and Hawaiian monk seals, in order to track their movements in the wild, which allows our experts to learn more about how to better protect these species.
• The Marine Mammal Center began our Hawaiian monk seal outreach and education programs on Maui in 2022, expanding our efforts to protect endangered species.
• The Center is a leading first responder to cetaceans in distress, including threatened and endangered populations. With the expansion of our large whale entanglement response efforts, we’re now creating the capacity and infrastructure to collaboratively advance whale entanglement response on the West Coast of the United States.

• Once on the verge of extinction, the eastern North Pacific gray whale population rebounded and was delisted under the Endangered Species Act. Amidst the species' more recent decline, the Center’s researchers are actively monitoring the population’s health and performing necropsies on dead whales that wash ashore in order to identify and respond to rapidly changing environmental trends.
• For the first time, researchers have been able to confirm that two of our former Hawaiian monk seal patients are new moms—a powerful example of the impact of conservation efforts for this endangered species.
• The Center retrofitted two patient pens to safely house and rehabilitate southern sea otters and customized a specialized housing area for our most vulnerable sea otter patients, allowing our experts to provide more hands-on care as we work to help this threatened species recover.
• The first sea otter to rehabilitate in the Center’s specialized housing area for vulnerable otters, Spinny, healed from a severe shark bite wound and was successfully released.

You can adopt Spinny today 
to help the next sea otter in need!

• In 1979, the Center published our first scientific paper. Since then, our research scientists have been primary or contributing authors on hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers and textbook chapters with the goal of understanding the lives and deaths of marine mammals to improve conservation outcomes.
• Once considered threatened, the Eastern population of Steller sea lions successfully met recovery criteria and was removed from the endangered species list. Recent population surveys suggest this population is growing steadily each year. The Western population is still endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act.
• The Center performed the first CT scan, with partners like NOAA, on a wild Hawaiian monk seal. The CT scan allowed experts to resolve the seal’s complex diagnosis and begin a treatment plan that led to her recovery. RH38 was monitored in the wild, and four years later, she was rescued again due to other health concerns. She received expert care and was successfully released back to her Kauaʻi home—a conservation win for protecting endangered species.