Two once endangered plants that live only on California’s Channel Islands – the Santa Cruz Island Dudleya and island bedstraw – have been declared fully recovered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. As the Endangered Species Act turns 50, more than 100 species of plants and animals have recovered or been reclassified from endangered to threatened, and hundreds more species are stable or improving thanks to the collaborative actions of Tribes, federal agencies, state and local governments, conservation organizations and private citizens. In 1997, the Service determined 13 plants on California’s northern Channel Islands needed ESA protections as a result of decades of habitat loss and alteration. By 2000, sheep grazing ended, and by 2006, all non-native feral pigs had been removed from the islands.

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