Talk:Conservation status

message: We probably should have a couple of example species for each category. I started that, but it needs oversight and more examples. Ideally, as common and as well-known examples as possible. (Is Prewalski's Horse really extinct in the wild - probably not. The Dromedary is an excellent example to use as it illustrates a very important point: there are millions of Dromedaries in the world, and yet the species is nevertheless extinct in the wild as they are all either domesticated or feral. The other example in that category should be a species that unambiguously survives only in zoos.)
Pitch in, team. Tannin 07:22, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Content

message: How are we going to deal with domesticated animals? Shouldn't they have their own status? --mav 12:26, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Domesticated animals

message: === Homo floresiensis ===
The taxobox in Homo floresiensis said "Fossil", which was wrong -- none of the known specimens are fossilised. But according to this article, "Extinct" is also wrong, since they aren't known in "recent memory". So what should we say???
-- Toby Bartels 23:44, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "Prehistoric" if in taxobox, "subfossil" in discussion. Dysmorodrepanis 02:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Later points

message: The taxobox in Homo floresiensis said "Fossil", which was wrong -- none of the known specimens are fossilised. But according to this article, "Extinct" is also wrong, since they aren't known in "recent memory". So what should we say???
-- Toby Bartels 23:44, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "Prehistoric" if in taxobox, "subfossil" in discussion. Dysmorodrepanis 02:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Homo floresiensis'' 

message: Hello, folks. I've only just found this impressive article (from its link on cabbage tree). Added some headings above, and rearranged hierarchy accordingly. I expect most of the February questions have been agreed and acted on, but I've not checked more than a couple.
A couple of half-sentences or lines belong on this page rather than in the article (as touched on above - but I don't know what state the article was in when those comments were made). Here they are as copied from there (and soon to be either deleted or modified there):
*The following conservation status categories are recommended for use in Wikipedia entries. They are loosely based on the IUCN categories.
*Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/Taxobox_Usage#Conservation_status for templates
Now that I have discovered this, I may give it a few more inward links.
Robin Patterson 00:12, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Small edits in early 2005

message: Shouldn't be the second part of the content in the "Wikipedia" spacename? I think that this is a guide but no an article. Llull 09:29, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Space name

message: I have added info on the South African assessment system, but am awaiting details on the ranking system (presently used or proposed to be used) from SANBI - I shall add it when they reply to my writing. The new Institute (it was a thought on paper as recently as when when this article was written :-) ) is the direct descendant of the National Botanic Institute (Kirstenbosch) and has still to refine procedures for what was previously the uncoordinated work of various agencies and organisations. Centralised manpower and facilities, coordinated projects and improved funding should smooth the scientists' work somewhat. --Seejyb 21:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent! I'll be interested to hear what develops. —Pengo  talk · contribs 23:14, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  South African assessment system 

message: I certainly wouldn't say that being a domesticated animal ensures against extinction, in fact a lack of biodiversity among livestock could lead to entire species dying out if we're not careful.  Aren't there also some examples of domesticated animals that have gone extinct?  Citizen Premier 04:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes,it's a silly status, and is only used on wikipedia and not by others The golden hamster is an example of a species that's both domesticated and threatened with extinction in the wild. —Pengo 10:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Domestic animals" isn't a conservation status, is it? 

message: i think it would be nice if putting the mouse over the conservation status would give the meaning of the acronym, not just a link to the picture. i dunno how it can be done... Fdskjs 00:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, It's not only possible. They've done it on the hebrew wiki.. e.g. :he:שימפנזה מצוי. —Pengo 04:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposals 

message: I'm confused about this. I'm assuming only humans will be reading Wikipedia, why do we have a CS? The Fear (talk) 22:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We shouldn't. While humans are definitely "Least concern", no one has assessed us as such, and so it shouldn't be given. —Pengo 05:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human conservation status

message: Mosquitos, rats, et cetera are not threatened by humans, instead they do pose a threat. Or your everyday urban pidgeons, which are outnumbering humans at every substantial city.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.140.240.108 (talk) 02:22, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The categories simply are not designed for the task of considering pest species. "Least concern" is similar to "no concern at all", but no species is beyond the threat of extinction. Consider the Passenger Pigeon which was once extremely common. Note that it is possible for a species to become endangered even when it is a pest or domesticated elsewhere in the world. For example, even though it is commonly kept as a pet, the axolotl is critically endangered because its natural habitat is being heavily degraded by urbanization. —Pengo 05:57, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why there is no "no concern at all" or "needs popuplation control" at this non-neutral scale? 

message: All articles with conservation statuses are linked back to this page, including those that are near threatened or least concern, but this page doesn't explain what those terms are. It seems sensible to me that they should be mentioned here. AndyLandy (talk) 15:51, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descriptions for "near threatened" and "least concern" 

message: Could someone explain why the conservation stati are capitalised (e.g. Extinct in the Wild)? They are not proper nouns and should be written in lower case...Even if the International Union for Conservation of Nature has its own way to write them, here they should follow the guidelines of Wikipedia (Wikipedia:Manual of Style).The risk of confusion with anything else is especially low when they are direct links to the detailed article (e.g. extinct in the wild).Coreyemotela (talk) 15:06, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's one possible answer (or food for thought): "endangered" can mean many things, while "Endangered" to the IUCN means something very clear and codified. It gets messier when statuses from different agencies are used, thus to the IUCN, "Threatened" is a group of statuses that includes "Critically Endangered", "Endangered", and "Vulnerable", while to the Endangered Species Act, "Threatened" is a  status distinct from "Endangered" (as explained in Threatened species) Since "threatened" and "Threatened" can imply different meanings, in this case I believe that capitalizing statuses is more informative to the readers, regardless of what the manual of style says (Common sense and exceptions may apply: the 5th fundamental principle of Wikipedia after all is Wikipedia does not have firm rules). A hypothetical example in which I believe selective capitalization clarifies things: "The spotted foo frog is threatened by habitat-loss and invasive species, and is especially vulnerable to pollution; thus due to steep declines the species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, and as Threatened by the ESA."  --Animalparty-- (talk) 05:52, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  If we capitalise "Threatened" both when it is a UICN status and when it is an ESA status, it does not help. We could also use sentence case all the time; because the only thing that make it clear is either a mention of the classification agency ("listed as vulnerable by the IUCN") or a direct link to the page on the status (listed as vulnerable) or both. What do you think? Coreyemotela (talk) 06:23, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Coreyemotela, I've pondered this issue before too, and I'm inclined to agree with you. Nonetheless, since this would affect styling on thousands of pages, have you considered taking this question to the MOS for a centralized discussion? You might find a few people there with opinions about capitalizing things. Tdslk (talk) 15:32, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for your message. I posted a message on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalisation of the conservation statuses of biological species advertise this discussion. Coreyemotela (talk) 20:05, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

text: The same effect would by had by putting them in italics, but I agree that in this case a distinction of some sort is essential for clarity.  DGG ( talk ) 01:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Sometimes categories are considered to be proper nouns and sometimes they are not. In this case "Threatened" means to me that some organization has decided that whatever is being considered is on their Threatened list. If it just says "threatened", I only assume the normal English meaning of the word. In this case I think capitalizing the word adds significant meaning, so I'd go for capitalization when it is indicating membership in a named list or category. SchreiberBike talk 01:31, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What some organization decides to put on a list doesn't magically make a new proper noun for encyclopedic purpose.  Coreymotela's solution is the obvious one: Specific who says it's endangered/threatened/whatever: "listed as vulnerable by the IUCN", with whatever links we need there.  A statement like "this species is endangered" isn't somehow immunte from the requirements for clarity and verifiability.  Don't capitalize, just be specific.  People have really got to get over this mania for capitalizing Everything That Seems Important to Them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:07, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: * Isn't there a difference between Capitalizing Everything That Seems Important and capitalizing something because (1) it's a specific reference or noun and/or (2) that's the manner in which the body/entity responsible for its introduction and/or meaning presents it...? Sardanaphalus (talk) 08:37, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

text: As most opinions expressed here, together with the Manual of Style, argue against unnecessary and unjustified capitalisation, I modified the articles about conservation statuses today. Coreyemotela (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur with Coreyemotela and SMcCandlish. I swear I made an argument for this several years ago but can't find it for the life of me. Jenks24 (talk) 13:23, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalisation of conservation stati 

message: The infobox (top-right) and navbox (bottom) both list the term "Conservation Dependent" but the main article text does not mention that classification. This needs to be added somewhere. - dcljr (talk) 22:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conservation Dependent 

message: I have seen "Fossil" and "Not Described" listed in various places for IUCN conservation status categories, are these more or less official or otherwise have a widespread consensus on use?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.95.162.30 (talk) 10:29, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Two additional categories?

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160128190606/http://jr.iucnredlist.org/documents/redlist_cats_crit_en.pdf to http://jr.iucnredlist.org/documents/redlist_cats_crit_en.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140323091914/http://intranet.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/SSC/RedList/redlistcatsenglish.pdf to http://intranet.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/SSC/RedList/redlistcatsenglish.pdf
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thread_title: External links modified

message: Where does one update the template used in  and the like?  NZTCS updated their system in 2008, and the ratings in the template(s?) are out of date.  Nessie (talk) 16:01, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) needs updating

message: which of these animals a mollusk 119.94.73.41 (talk) 08:12, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  science 

message: Does anyone have images of all the conservative statuses (Eg. Being marked on Least Concern) expect for the Critically Endandgered? Cometkeiko (talk) 14:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wanting Images