The protection of minor subspecies that may not in fact be unique has no merit. The reason it is failing is because it is not able to adapt to present the present change.
Change is caused by progressives who actually abhor progress and insist in reverting to a past long gone.
the toad must be allowed to disappear. There is no point al all in the effort to preserve a trivial population
If we didn’t have Congress full of treasonous RINOs, they could have fixed the endangered species act so that it only protected full species, consistent with the original “Noah’s Ark” intent. Of course, that would not stop the biologists from pulling their little games. In 1998 Bufo microscaphus was split into two species, Bufo californicus, and B. microscaphus. Presto, an endangered species!
IMHO, the only principled way to define species is whether the two members can produce fertile offspring; the rest is political science. A really competent Congress would put that species definition in the statute, so no group could be listed unless it were a true species.