What Does the Conservation Status Mean?
- Nicole Anson
- Sep 2, 2016
- 1 min read
Ever wondered what the little letters underneath an animal information file mean?
Well it's called the "conservation status" and here is all about it.
What is it?
The conservation status is the classification given to a group of organisms (species) to indicate how many of it is left. The different classifications are:
Not evaluated (NE) - Not yet evaluated against the criteria of classification
Data deficient (DD) - Not enough data to asses the level of classification
Least concern (LC) - Lowest risk of extinction; many of the species left
Near threatened (NT) - Likely to become endangered in the future
Vulnerable (VU) - High risk of endangerment in the wild
Endangered (EN) - High risk of extinction in the wild
Critically endangered (CR) - Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild
Extinct in the wild (EW) - Known only to survive in captivity
Extinct (EX) - No individuals remaining
Why do we use it?
Scientists use the conservation status of a species to see if they need to pay more attention to certain animals more than others so all species can remain balanced. The best conservation status listing and ranking worldwide is the "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species" which was founded in 1964. The latest version of it is version 3.1 and if you would like to search for a certain animal or plant species for its conservation status, the link is here: http://www.iucnredlist.org/
Fact of the Day: There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction
Word count: 260
Character count: 1462
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_status
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List
http://www.iucnredlist.org/
http://www.endangeredearth.com/
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