Chairman and members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the U. The Service welcomes any independent and external review of how we are administering the critically important Endangered Species Act. As you know, we have been working hard for a number of years to improve the way we administer the Act. We have developed a number of new programs to provide incentives to landowners to conserve endangered and threatened species on private lands.
We have also focused attention on streamlining the section 7 consultation process and coordinating more effectively with Federal agencies to conserve listed species. I am proud of the hard work that everyone in the Service does to administer the Endangered Species Act. We look upon the work conducted by the GAO as an opportunity to identify ways to further improve the administration of the Endangered Species Act at the Carlsbad Office, and apply those lessons throughout the country.
When Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in there were many environmental challenges facing our nation. The original purpose of the Act was to provide immediate protections to individual species on the brink of extinction. Species like the Florida manatee, the California condor, the black-footed ferret, the peregrine falcon, and the Hawaiian goose nene were all original members of the list.
Last year, largely because cooperative recovery efforts, the peregrine falcon was removed from the list. Unfortunately, our successes are overshadowed by the ever increasing numbers of species on the list or waiting to be added.
Today there are 1, domestic species on the List of Endangered and Threatened Species; this represents more than a 30 percent increase in the last 5 years. The list of candidate species that are awaiting Federal protection under the Act continues to grow. Simultaneously, the challenges facing management and restoration of our nation's fish and wildlife have evolved.
