The Species at Risk Act (2002) and transboundary species listings along the US-Canada border

Raymond, Sarah, Perkins, Sarah E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7457-2699 and Garrard, Greg 2024. The Species at Risk Act (2002) and transboundary species listings along the US-Canada border. Humanities 13 (1) , 38. 10.3390/h13010038

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Abstract

This paper is a collaborative interdisciplinary examination of the scientific, political, and cultural determinants of the conservation status of mammal species that occur in both Canada and the USA. We read Canada’s Species at Risk Act as a document of bio-cultural nationalism circumscribed by the weak federalism and Crown–Indigenous relations of the nation’s constitution. We also provide a numerical comparison of at-risk species listings either side of the US–Canada border and examples of provincial/state listings in comparison with those at a federal level. We find 17 mammal species listed as at-risk in Canada as distinct from the USA, and only 6 transboundary species that have comparable levels of protection in both countries, and we consider several explanations for this asymmetry. We evaluate the concept of ‘jurisdictional rarity’, in which species are endangered only because a geopolitical boundary isolates a small population. The paper begins and ends with reflections on interdisciplinary collaboration, and our findings highlight the importance of considering and explicitly acknowledging political influences on science and conservation-decision making, including in the context of at-risk-species protection.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Publisher:	MDPI
ISSN:	2076-0787
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 February 2024
Date of Acceptance:	18 December 2023
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2024 09:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166222

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