Not all endangered species are created equal or cute and cuddly, so less cash flows their way

Fifty years ago this month President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act, one of history's most important environmental laws.

The law has had some stunning successes in bringing back species from the brink of the extinction. Notable victories include the bald eagle, the manatee and the gray wolf.

But other forgotten or unforgiven at risk species — some venomous, others infamous — need protection, too, biologists say. But like morally ambiguous characters in the 1966 Clint Eastwood Western, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," it's often unclear which if any of these "uncuddly" creatures are redeemable or better left to the harsh bullets Darwinism delivers.

And when it comes to guarding these less-popular species from what's lethal, all are supposed to be equal. But some animals are more equal than others. Plants, too.

Manatees, sea turtles and panthers get the big bucks. They have their own license plates, nonprofits and lobbyists. Donations pour in by the millions as they tear at our heart strings — and purse strings.

But does anyone lose sleep over the goblin shark, the Florida rice rat or make multi-million dollar donations to save the fuzzy pigtoe mussel? Does the Choctaw bean have a political lobby? Who knows of the pipefish barely clinging to life in the Sebastian River or the Titusville balm flower that only spouts in its namesake city?

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Florida echoes a half century of wins and losses under the Endangered Species Act

What's the difference between endangered and threatened?

There are snails, snakes and other passed-over creepier critters that get little to no attention — or cash — despite being among the most endangered and unsung among us. They're often the lowliest of lifeforms, sometimes quite less cute, cuddly and charismatic — some might even say, ugly. But biologists warn Florida's less attractive flora and fauna often play a key ecological role, sometimes more so than the much more heavily funded and adorable species for which we so readily open our wallets and purses.

So as the world's most comprehensive species protection laws turns 50, some conservationists and biologists lament how difficult it's become to add new plants and animals to the Endangered Species List.

"It's very hard to get a species listed now," said Lesley Blackner, an environmental attorney representing a nonprofit that's suing Florida for failing to protect manatees. Animals and plants pay the price, she added, as developers and other economic actors do the minimum to comply, in order to duck new species listings.

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Federal listings slow

Before the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, there already had been 117 species listed as "endangered" under other federal laws. In the first decade after the act, 184 species got listed. The following decade, 534 were listed, then 457 the next decade, then 227 the decade after that, and just 201 in the past decade.

Some conservation biologists have been petitioning the federal government for decades to list overlooked species such as Sebastian River's pipefish that have extremely narrow niches in nature.

It's among a litany of species in limbo, facing a regulatory pace that's been slowing to a crawl.

And it's getting tougher to find an opossum pipe fish in Sebastian these days.

"We are particularly concerned with this species as it depends on freshwater bank vegetation that is commonly killed with herbicides," said Grant Gilmore, a fisheries ecologist in Vero Beach who's gathered a half-century of data on Florida fish. "We are now having trouble finding it due to vegetation loss at locations where it was previously common."

Several other fish right here in east Central Florida are among those environmentalists say should be protected including: the whitemouth croaker and the burro grunt, not to mention the pipefish.

Gilmore said that from 1972 to 2016, more opossum pipefish gathered near a canal that spills to the Sebastian River than any other site where biologists have looked, but "... now it is devoid of both the appropriate vegetation and pipefish," he added.

He suspects pesticides may be at play with the pipefish and other rare fish struggling in the Sebastian River. Water sampling by the nonprofit, called ORCA, recently has shown that glyphosate (Roundup) levels upstream are higher than any other location tested, Gilmore noted.

The opossum pipefish is on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's list as a "species of concern," due to Gilmore's and other's efforts two decades ago. But Gilmore says the fish should be "endangered" and merits more protection. He's among scientists petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the fish accordingly.

Rare Titusville mint yet to make federal list

Another similar petition aims for a federal listing of a rare mint plant that only grows in a small bedroom community just west of where NASA's Kennedy Space Center blasts rockets out of this world.

You won't find Dicerandra thinicola Miller — aka Titusville mint — growing anywhere else on Earth. The mint is among the rarest of any plant in the southeastern United States.

But why should we care about lowly plants like this? Biologists say that like most "unsung" endangered species, beyond their intrinsic and ecotourism value, plants like this could have medicinal uses we don't yet understand.

"It definitely has some strong chemicals in it," said Ron Chicone, land management specialist with Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands program, which manages the 44-acre Dicerandra Scrub Sanctuary in Titusville.

It also lures pollinators that propagate plants, and ecotourists that propagate dollars. Unlike the goblin shark, this unsung species wasn't hit with "the ugly stick." Enthusiasts from afar to snap stills of the mint's spectacular fall blooms.

But ecologists worry, as with many forgotten species, a federal designation will come far too late for the mint and other species, before we understand what's lost.

"When you protect something like this, you're basically protecting life on the planet," Chicone said.

Contact Jim Waymer at jwaymer@floridatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Endangered species like goblin shark, Florida rice rat lack attention