Judgments about acceptable risk in the context of policy may be influenced by law makers, policy makers, experts and the general public. While significant effort has been made to understand public attitudes on acceptable risk of environmental pollution, little is known about such attitudes in the context of species\u27 endangerment. We present survey results on these attitudes in the context of United States\u27 legal-political apparatus intended to mitigate species endangerment. The results suggest that the general public exhibit lower tolerance for risk than policy makers and experts. Results also suggest that attitudes about acceptable risk for species endangerment are importantly influenced by one\u27s knowledge about the environment and social identity. That result is consistent with notions that risk judgments are a synthesis of facts and values and that knowledge is associated with one\u27s social identity. We explain the implications of these findings for understanding species endangerment across the planet
