Home > Conservation status

The best-known worldwide conservation status listing is the IUCN Red List, but many more specialised lists exist.

The following conservation status categories are recommended for use in Wikipedia entries. They are loosely based on the IUCN categories.

• Secure (SE): no immediate threat to the survival of the species. Examples: Human, Cat, Dog, Llama.
• Lower Risk (LR): of conservation concern, facing some risk of extinction in the medium to longer term. Divided into three subcategories, cd (conservation dependent), where cessation of current conservation measures could result in its becoming classified at a higher risk level, nt (near threatened), close to qualifying for listing as Vulnerable but not fully meeting those criteria, and lc (least concern), where threats exist but are not currently serious. Examples: Bigcone Douglas-fir (LRnt), Coast Redwood (LRcd).
• Vulnerable (VU): faces a high risk of extinction in the medium-term. Examples: Ring-tailed Lemur, Great White Shark.
• Endangered (EN): faces a very high risk of extinction in the near future. Examples: Blue Whale, Desert Bighorn Sheep.
• Critical or critically endangered (CR): faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future. Example: Slender-billed Curlew.
• Extinct in the Wild (EW): captive individuals survive, but there is no free-living, natural population. Example: Przewalski's HorsePrzewalski's Horse Equus przewalskii or E. caballus przewalskii , also known as the Mongolian Wild Horse, or Takhi, is the closest living relative of the Domestic Horse and may in fact be the same species. Authorities differ about the correct classificati (in preliminary recovery).
• Extinct (EX): the last remaining member of the species had died, or is presumed to have died beyond reasonable doubt, within recent history. IUCN sets a date of 1500Events Europe's population was ~60 million. Spielvogel January 5 Duke Ludovico Sforza recaptures Milan, but is soon driven out again by the French. April 22 Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral officially discovers Brazil and claims the land for Port for modern extinctions. Examples: ThylacineThe Tasmanian Tigers is the name of the Tasmanian state cricket team. The Thylacine Thylacinus cynocephalus was a large carnivorous marsupial native to Australia. In the early days of European settlement it was known as the Tasmanian Tiger or Tasmanian Wo, DodoThis article is about the extinct bird. See also Prince Dodo, Dodo (Biblical name) or Dodo (ISP). The Mauritius Dodo Raphus cucullatus called Didus ineptus by Linnaeus), more commonly just Dodo was a metre-high flightless bird of the island of Mauritius..
• Data Deficient (DD): a taxon is listed as Data deficient when there is inadequate information to make an assessment of its risk category, either through lack of knowledge of population size, threats to it, or to taxonomic uncertainty of the validity of the taxon. Examples: Scottish CrossbillScottish Crossbill : Animalia : Chordata : Aves : Passeriformes : Fringillidae Loxia scotica Binomial name Loxia scotica Hartert, 1904 The Scottish Crossbill Loxia scotica is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. This bird breeds to a s (taxonomic uncertainty with respect to Parrot CrossbillParrot Crossbill : Animalia : Chordata : Aves : Passeriformes : Fringillidae Loxia pytyopsittacus Binomial name Loxia pytyopsittacus Borkhausen, 1793 The Parrot Crossbill Loxia pytyopsittacus is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae.), Yunnan Cypress (lack of knowledge of wild population size).
• Fossil: not a conservation status as much as an indication that the species is only known from the fossilFor other uses of the term, see Fossil (disambiguation Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals or plants or other artifacts such as footprints. The totality of fossils and their placement in rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fo records.
• Prehistoric: someplace between Extinct and Fossil: the species went extinct before 1500Events Europe's population was ~60 million. Spielvogel January 5 Duke Ludovico Sforza recaptures Milan, but is soon driven out again by the French. April 22 Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral officially discovers Brazil and claims the land for Port, but some specimens exist in a non-fossilized state. This is of particular use in human evolutionHuman evolution as a scientific field has a long and sometimes controversial history, however, since the mid- 1990s, there has been a remarkable convergence of views about how humans have evolved. This convergence includes paleoanthropologists, geneticist, as molecular analysis of the specimens can be compared against that of other modern and prehistoric specimens.