The Regulatory Archive: Conservation Biology and the State of Endangerment

This project examines the coevolution of endangered species science and policy in the United States since the early 1970s, when laws were passed giving the federal government the authority to protect endangered species. These laws, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), have proven to be extremely controversial. Some critics argue that they are too weak to be effective, while others argue that they are unconstitutionally broad. All parties agree that decisions about “listing” species and issuing permits for the “take” of protected species have been thoroughly politicized. Nonetheless, science remains at the core of the project of endangered species protection.

According to the ESA, “to take” a member of a protected species is “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct,” a definition that covers much of the practice of field biology. Although the ESA and MMPA allow “taking” for the purpose of research, they require scientists to first submit detailed research plans to regulators for approval. Endangered species science is therefore just as much an output as it is an input of the regulatory process. While the listing of a species can increase opportunities for research, heightened scrutiny can lead scientists to abandon controversial techniques or to focus instead on related non-endangered species.

This project tracks the coproduction of endangered species science and policy through the regulatory archive produced under the MMPA and ESA. The archive is “regulatory” in two senses: it was produced by a regulatory process, and its production had a direct regulatory effect on science. Because the archive’s structure has remained largely unchanged over time, it can be analyzed with digital history techniques for quantifying and visualizing large datasets. To the extent the structure has changed, it indicates shifting ideas about the purpose of regulation and the value of research. At the same time that they protected species, regulators also defined and redefined science. This project thus examines historical shifts in the categories through which actors understood endangered species science, including such problematic concepts as “intrusive,” “benign,” “bona fide,” and “nonduplicative” research.