Wikipedia:Conservation status

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This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here, and Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Before making any major changes to these guidelines, please use the discussion page to ensure that your changes reflect consensus.

These conservation status categories are used in Wikipedia articles.

For threatened species and species believed to have become extinct after 1500, the categories are based on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) Red List 1994 or 2001 categories. Such species should be classified using the IUCN criteria directly using the most up-to-date database; the criteria given here are only a summary.

1 Category systems
2 Detailed IUCN categories
3 Special Wikipedia categories
- 3.1 Examples and categories
4 External link

[edit] Category systems

Category / ranking systems
System	`status_system`	Global	`status`	`status_ref`	Link	Notes
IUCN Red List 2001 Categories & Criteria (version 3.1)	`iucn3.1`	Yes (all)	EX EW CR EN VU NT LC DD NE PE PEW	{{IUCN2006}}	[1]
IUCN Red List 1994 Categories & Criteria (version 2.3)	`iucn2.3`	Yes (all)	EX EW CR EN VU LR/cd LR/nt LR/lc DD NE PE PEW	{{IUCN2006}}	[2]
NatureServe conservation status G-ranks	`TNC`	Yes	GX GH G1 G2 G3 G3 G4 G5 GU ~~GNR~~		[3]	Device does not cover range ranks, uncertain ranks, C qualifier, or global "T-ranks" for subspecies. This is a technical (non-deliberate) limitation. N and S-ranks should not be used.
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Australia)	`EPBC`	unknown ???	EX EW CR EN VU CD DL		Act 1999 & Regulations 2000	Category abbreviations are not official. DL (Delisted) should only be used on Wikipedia if a species is delisted because it is no longer threatened.
CITES	`CITES`	(Appendix I only)	CITES_A1 ~~CITES_A2~~ ~~CITES_A3~~		Act 1999 & Regulations 2000	Only Appendix I (CITES_A1) is valid for Wikipedia. Appendix II includes look-alike species, and Appendix III does not include globally threatened species.
US Endangered Species Act	`ESA`	Yes	LE LT DL		[4]	Species protected under the ESA have usually been given a more precise, and less political ranking by NatureServe conservation status. Please use that, or the IUCN Red List, instead (whichever has the most current date of review). LE = Listed Endangered. DL (Delisted) should only be used on Wikipedia if a species is delisted because it is no longer threatened.
Wikipedia specific	none	Y	DOM Pre Fossil		#	Domesticated, Prehistoric, and Fossil. Domesticated animals should still use IUCN categories when available for wild populations. No category assigned for "cultivated" (domesticated plants).

Notes:

Global means "Is the species entire (global) range assessed?"
Status_ref needs to be put into ref tags. e.g. <ref name="iucn">{{IUCN2006}}</ref>
PE and PEW are not official IUCN categories (Possibly Extinct and Possibly Extinct in the Wild), but PE has been adopted by Birdlife International, and the phrases appear within the IUCN Red List entries.

[edit] Detailed IUCN categories

Lower Risk (LR) was a catch-all category which includes common species as well as those for which there may be conservation concern, but which do not warrant a higher category. This category was removed in the IUCN 3.x criteria, promoting its subcategories to full categories.
- LR/cd (Conservation Dependent, now part of NT), stable and sizable populations depend on sustained conservation activity. (this category was absorbed by NT in 3.x)
- NT (Near Threatened, formerly LR/nt), close to qualifying for listing as Vulnerable but not fully meeting those criteria; slowly declining or fairly small populations but probably no danger of going extinct even without conservation activity in the foreseeable future, or threats suspected to affect taxon in the near future but still avoidable.
- LC (Least Concern, formally LR/lc), species that have been evaluated and found to be so common that no conservation concern is projected in the foreseeable future.

Examples: LR/cd: Coast Redwood; LR/nt: Bigcone Douglas-fir; LR/lc: Leopard (the species as a whole), Orca, House Sparrow.

Vulnerable (VU): faces a considerable risk of extinction in the medium term.

Examples: Ring-tailed Lemur, Great White Shark.

Endangered (EN): faces a high risk of extinction in the near future.

Examples: Blue Whale, Desert Bighorn Sheep, Giant Panda, Black-footed ferret (still "EW" on the IUCN Red List because last reviewed in 1996; currently EN accoring to ESA or G1 according to the more precise TNC G-ranks).

Critically Endangered (CR): faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the immediate future.

Examples: Slender-billed Curlew, Spanish Lynx, Red Wolf.

Extinct in the Wild (EW): captive individuals survive, and/or the species has been reintroduced outside its former natural range, but the species otherwise matches the criteria for "Extinct", such that no free-living, natural population is believed to exist. "Extirpated" is a term used for localized extinctions of extant species; it always refers to a specific area where the species no longer exists.

Examples: Hawaiian Crow, Scimitar Oryx.

Extinct (EX): extensive and appropriate surveys have failed to record any living members. The last remaining member is known or strongly suspected to have died later than 1500.

Examples: Thylacine, Dodo, Huia.

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, but where indications of a major threat or decline do not exist either.

Examples: Scottish Crossbill (taxonomic uncertainty with respect to Parrot Crossbill), Yunnan Cypress (lack of knowledge of wild population size but widespread as ornamental tree). Both taxa would likely be classified as NT or VU if sufficient data were available.

Not evaluated (NE): taxa whose conservation status has not been assessed to date. Many species have not been evaluated. This may be due to them being too recently described to be included in the latest IUCN red book. Any extant taxa that cannot be found with the IUCN Red List search function can be considered NE within IUCN, and the status field should be left blank, unless they are found within another system (e.g. TNC, EPBC, ESA).

Examples: Common species of insects often fall into this category.

[edit] Special Wikipedia categories

The following additional categories cover species that fall outside the scope of the IUCN Red List. The IUCN criteria are authoritative and should be used directly if applicable.

Domesticated: no immediate threat to the survival of the species. This category overlaps Least Concern but has been applied to humans and domesticated animals, for which the IUCN criteria are not valid. Examples: Human, Cat, Dog, Llama. However many species will use the IUCN category for the wild population. E.g. Golden Hamster.

Critical (Possibly Extinct) CR (PE), a semi-official category introduced by BirdLife International and likely to be adopted by other authorities including the IUCN in the near future. The weight of evidence points against the continuing existence of the taxon, but final surveys are still pending. Examples: Eskimo Curlew, Madagascar Pochard, Turquoise-throated Puffleg.

Prehistoric: somewhere between Extinct and Fossil: the species went extinct before 1500. A major part of the species' remains exist in a subfossil state. This is of particular use in human evolution, as molecular analysis of the specimens can be compared against that of other modern and prehistoric specimens. Examples: Mammuthus exilis, Cave lion, the Neanderthal human, most moa and Hawaiian honeycreeper extinctions. Generally speaking, this encompasses pre-Western contact Late Quaternary extinctions.

Fossil: The species is only known from completely fossilized material records; there may be a few chance finds of preserved tissue, but organic matter of these species is generally nonexistent and has been replaced by minerals. Examples: Tyrannosaurus rex, Australopithecus, Ammonites.

It should be noted that scientific literature does not usually distinguish between fossil and subfossil specimens. Generally, if molecular analysis or radiocarbon dating can be routinely carried out on specimens of a taxon, the taxon is classified as "Prehistoric". The recent discoveries of what seems to be minute amounts of preserved soft tissue in some dinosaur specimens, on the other hand, would not alter their "Fossil" status. As a rule of thumb, taxa extinct in the recent 50-30.000 years would possibly qualify as "Prehistoric".

[edit] Examples and categories

Main article: Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage#Conservation_status

As explained in the usage for parameter status the old templates should be replaced by the new status codes. Here's a table allowing to track this matter. If the template column shows a category link this template adds (or at least added) pages to this category, and allows (or at least allowed) to disable this feature in examples by an empty category= parameter.

replace this template ...	(template output)	...with this code
{{StatusSecure}} links talk view	secure	secure
{{StatusDomesticated}} category links talk view	DOM	DOM
{{StatusConcern}} category links talk view	Least Concern	LR
{{StatusLeastConcern}} links talk view	LC	LC or LR/lc
{{StatusNearConcern}} links talk view	NT	NT or LR/nt
{{StatusConserveConcern}} links talk view	LR/cd	LR/cd
{{StatusVulnerable}} links talk view	VU	VU
{{StatusEndangered}} category links talk view	EN	EN
{{StatusCritical}} category links talk view	CR	CR
{{StatusExtinctW}} category links talk view	EW	EW
{{ StatusExtinct`\|`when=year }} links talk view	Extinct (year)	EX extinct = <date>
{{StatusData}} links talk view	DD	DD
{{StatusUnknown}} links talk view	NE	NE
{{StatusFossil}} links talk view	fossil	fossil_range = <start-end>
{{StatusPrehistoric}} links talk view	pre	pre
{{StatusSeeText}} links talk view	text	text