For instance, Arroyo recalled that when he was a regional official in Texas, he helped teach ranchers to cut back junipers on their land to preserve habitat of the black-capped vireo, an endangered bird.
"We didn't say, 'No cattle ranching,' " he explained.
As for listing fewer species, the focus is on intervening before numbers dwindle, Arroyo said.
"It's not that we don't want to list species. But if I don't have to put it on the list, then I don't have to recover it."
One thing all sides tend to agree on is that the act has become a captive of litigation. Of the 58 species protected under Bush, 54 were listed as a result of lawsuits by environmental groups.
Meanwhile, most litigation seeking to restrict the size of "critical habitat" -- land on which imperiled wildlife depends -- is brought by timber companies, farm bureaus, housing developers and energy companies.
The Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, an industry-funded group, has brought suit to force a review of whether to delist 194 California species on the grounds that they may have recovered.
To date, the Bush administration has taken 15 species off the endangered list -- more than any other administration.
Some were widely applauded, such as the bald eagle, whose removal was announced last week. Others, environmental groups contend, were politically driven, such as California's Sacramento splittail, a Central Valley fish that competes for water with farmers.
"Court orders are the only thing that makes the agency take any action," said Kieran Suckling of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group.
As for the public-private partnerships that Arroyo praises, much of that funding is being diverted to "facilitate massive energy development by conglomerates in Wyoming's Green River basin," Suckling charges.
Arroyo sees it differently -- the costs of restricting land use to save wildlife must also be considered.
"We have to implement the act within the social and economic context in which we live," he said.
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margot.roosevelt@latimes.com
Times staff writer Alison Williams contributed to this report.
