Maguire Daisy In Full Bloom

If you're the type who stops to smell the flowers, you'll be glad to know that the Maguire Daisy can now be one of those flowers you stumble across.  That is if you happen to be in southeastern Utah.

This plant was down to just seven plants in 1985 but with protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) it now flourishes in ten different locations and numbers over 163,000 plants.

Tom Strickland, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks said, “The delisting of the Maguire daisy shows that the Endangered Species Act is an effective tool not only to save species from the brink of extinction but also to recover them to healthy populations”

The Maguire Daisy is a member of the sunflower family. Native plants are important for their ecological, economic, and aesthetic values. They play an important role in the development of disease resistant crops, and in crops that resist insects, and drought.

The Maguire Daisy is the 21st species in the US and US territories to be delisted due to recovery.  Other species that have recovered enough to be removed from listing under the ESA, and the dates of their delistings, are as follows:

Brown pelican (Atlantic coast population 1985, rest of the range in 2009)
Virginia northern flying squirrel (2008)
Bald Eagle (2007)
Eggert’s sunflower (2005)
Tinian Monarch (2004)
Columbian white-tailed deer (Douglas County Population, 2003)
Hoover’s woolly-star (2003)
Robbins’ cinquefoil (2002)
Aleutian Canada goose (2001)
American peregrine falcon (1999)
eastern gray kangaroo (1995)
western gray kangaroo (1995)
red kangaroo (1995)
Arctic peregrine falcon (1994)
gray whale (eastern North Pacific (California) population, 1994)
American alligator (1987)
Palau ground dove (1985)
Palau fantail flycatcher (1985)
Palau owl (1985).