183 bird species have moved to higher threat category

 
Published: Saturday 31 May 2008

Only 23 species have moved to<as many as 183 bird species have moved from lower to higher threat category in iucns Red List of threatened species between 1988 and 2004, revealed a recent study.

Only23 species, by contrast, moved to lower threat category, said researchers of Charles Darwin University, Australia. They said this is because conservation measures were less targeted at moderately threatened species. Hence, less threatened species moved to higher-threat categories at a much faster rate, they said in the study published in the April issue of Conservation Biology.

The researchers examined transition rates for all bird species in the Red List in Australia corresponding to criterion E that are on the threshold of extinction. They also examined how well critically endangered bird species had fared between 1994 and 2004.

They found that fewer critically endangered birds had become extinct than was predicted in 1994 using criterion E. This could be because of conservation actions, which succeeded in moving more species from critically endangered to lower threat category of endangered, said S T Garnett, professor at School of Environmental Research, Charles Darwin University.

According to iucn norms, a bird is critically endangered if there is 50 per cent probability of its extinction in 10 years or three generations, whichever is longer; a bird is endangered if there is at least 20 per cent probability of its extinction within 20 years or five generations; a bird is vulnerable if there is at least 10 per cent extinction possibility within 100 years.

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