More than 2,370 species have received protections from the federal government under the Endangered Species Act, from schoolbus-sized North Atlantic right whales off the East Coast to tiny Oahu tree snails in Hawaii.

But only a fraction of that number has ever come off the law’s endangered-species list. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently compared it to “Hotel California: once a species enters, they never leave.”

Kiley explains the effectiveness of one of the country’s most central conservation laws, why it’s under attack, and the most famous species to ever come off the list.

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