MENDOTA, Calif. — When it began compiling lists of threatened and endangered animals and plants more than 35 years ago, the U.S. government gave itself the same mandate as Noah’s Ark: Save everything. But the effort has often worked more like a velvet-rope nightclub: Glamour rules.
The furry, the feathered, the famous and the edible have dominated government funding for protected species, to the point that one subpopulation of threatened salmon gets more money than 956 other plants and animals combined.
Now, though, scientists say they’re noticing a little more love for the unlovely.
Officials say plain-Jane plants, birds with fluorescent goiters and beetles that meet their mates at rat corpses are getting money and respect — valued as homely canaries inside treasured ecosystems.
“You can’t disregard any of the pieces of the puzzle if you want to save all the pieces of the puzzle,” said Trent Orr, an Oakland, Calif.-based lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice.
