The median number of populations required for delisting under the U.S. Endangered Species Act is at or below historical population numbers for 64% of species.
Notes on verification
Verified against peer-reviewed BioScience article on two independent hosting platforms (Oxford Academic, BioOne), both matching the exact statistic verbatim. USGS listing corroborates as the same publication's metadata. [tier=unverified indep_score=0.3 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable] [rescored 2026-09-15: curated origin-host map (PR #65); unclassified hosts no longer scored as aggregators]
Sources
- how is recovery defined by the U.S. Endangered Species Act? (seed:environment_and_wildlife)
- https://bioone.org/journals/bioscience/volume-62/issue-7/bio.2012.62.7.7/By-the-Numbers--How-is-Recovery-Defined-by-the/10.1525/bio.2012.62.7.7.short (corroboration)
- https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/62/7/646/243343 (corroboration)