In this NYT story on the bald eagle’s recovery, Michael Bean of Environmnetal Defense celebrates the bird’s recovery as a tremendous “success” of the Endangered Species Act. That’s funny. Mr. Bean’s own organization, Environmental Defense, led the charge to ban DDT, and for years has taken credit for the pesticide’s prohibition, and the ensuing recovery of several bird species, in direct mails campaigns. Who’s right? In this case, the direct mail is more accurate than Mr. Bean’s convenient, and desperate, effort to credit the ESA. As I’ve noted before, the ESA has been a terrible failure, and it does not deserve credit for the eagle’s rebound.