This means that we must protect and conserve the habitat that provides everything we need to survive and human welfare itself (defenders.org). The three goals of ESA are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions (Endangered Species Act 1988).
The ESA works by doing four principal things, the listing of endangered or threatened species, the protection of endangered or threatened species, establishment of critical habitat, and recovery planning for the endangered or threatened species. .
The first thing that must happen before any animal or plant can be protected by federal actions is that it must be listed as an endangered or threatened species. Any person can petition the government for a plant or animal to be added to the list. The listing of animals as endangered species has been a source of controversy because sometimes it is hard to determine exactly what species an animal or plant is or even if it is its own species all together (Sherry 20-21). Under the ESA in order for an animal to be listed it has to be researched and study thoroughly before it even makes it on the list. Usually this process takes at least twenty-seven months unless there is an emergency in which an animal is listed immediately. This exert from the ESA explains the determination of a species to be listed. .
"The Secretary of the Interior shall by regulation promulgate whether any species is an endangered species or a threatened species because of any of the following factors:.
(A) the present or threatened destruction, modification, or curtailment of its habitat or range; (B) overutilization for commercial, recreational, scientific, or educational purposes; (C) disease or predation; (D) the inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms; (E) other natural or manmade factors affecting its continued existence.