Officially designated globally threatened species includes “all full species categorized at the global level as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable.” These are species generally accepted as threatened with extinction!
Threatened species categories are the following:
- Critically Endangered (CR): species facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future.
- Endangered (EN): species that are not “Critically Endangered” but are facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.
- Vulnerable (VU): species facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future.
The term “Near Threatened” is also used to inform of species that are on the brink of being in the globally threatened category. For each threat category, specific criteria are used to classify species in one of the three categories mentioned above:
- Declining population
- Small population, vulnerable to decline or fluctuations
- Very restricted distribution
- Quantitative analyses showing vulnerability to future declines (e.g. Population Viability Analysis)
Data on threatened species are globally compiled and maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in their Red List of Threatened Animals. Generally, the information presented in the current IUCN Red List represents an accumulation of knowledge derived from previously published Red Lists. Assessments represent the judgment of individual Specialist Group members based on available information. Oftentimes information quality and quantity is poor. In order to ensure greater accuracy and transparency in the assessment listing process, a peer review system of Red List Evaluators has been initiated. As a result, some species that have been formally assessed as vulnerable or even higher for example have been recently down-listed – the process is dynamic. In this book 26 species of birds are listed as Threatened and Near-Threatened and the international assessment code is shown next to each species in our species account.