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Parts of this article (those related to showing the most recent "release" as 2008, but website and research appear that this is ongoing concern) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.

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Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the following statement, which appears in the article doesn't stand on its own and isn't clear without further elaboration: "It has been suggested that the IUCN Red List and similar works are prone to misuse by governments and other groups that draw possibly inappropriate conclusions on the state of the environment or to effect exploitation of natural resources".

It seems to be suggesting that the IUCN Red List is used to enable environmental exploitation, but it doesn't present any argument to justify this counterintuitive assertion. I don't know much about best practices for editing Wikipedia, which is why I'm noting this here rather than editing it myself. I'd guess the claim should either be clarified, removed, or tagged as 'clarification needed'.

207.161.214.143 ( talk) 00:58, 5 July 2015 (UTC) reply

I notice that quite a lot species in wikipedia was "classified" as Least Concern in the Taxobox. But when you look it up to the IUCN website...large number of species are indeed NE (Not Evaluated). Classifying them as LC not only is wrong...but tragically misleading....a NE species may indeed threatened because no assessment has been done on it. Clearly NE does not mean LC. Someone should try to fix the problem of the taxobox...adding one more category NE. -- Hkchan123 ( talk) 22:00, 27 December 2009 (UTC) reply

I applied for a speedy delete of Red Book of Endangered Species and a redirect to here. I copied its info here. How widespread is use of Red Book instead of Red List?

The Red Book of Endangered Species is a collection potentially endangered species published by the World Conservation Union. Initially started in 1998 this project focuses on two primary goals:

• To identify and document those species most in need of conservation attention if global extinction rates are to be reduced
• To provide a global index of the state of degeneration of biodiversity.

-- Espoo 10:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC) reply

There is no longer a physical book, only the online version. But it is of historical importance. — Pengo 00:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC) reply

You use the abbreviation IUCN heavily throughout this article, but don't expand it in the lead-in... -- Horus Kol Talk 02:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC) reply

I've added it to the lead paragraph. Burlywood 14:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC) reply

IUCN's credibility critically endangered was published in a reliable source and is heavily referenced on the Internet. This controversy should be addressed in the article. jiHymas@himivest.com 216.191.217.90 18:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC) reply

That report is 10 years old, and also said that the IUCN was highly respected. Has there been any more recent controversy, or was this a once-off? LachlanA 03:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I tend to agree with the LacklanA -- checking the current redlist site for a specific animal ( http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/1228/summ) shows they list the evaluator and the reasoning. And it also provides a reasonable bibliography. I would want an expert to weigh in on how consistently they are reporting this for all species listed, but this seems very reasonable and much better than how the Nature article describes them. R343L ( talk) 03:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC) reply

There was a dead link (no page) in the see also section directing to "Crowned Solitary Eagle Conservancy". I wasn't able to find a page about conservation of that animal (and I don't see how it's relevant.) Previous to the bad link it went to African wild dogs, again, I don't see the relevance. I'm changing it to "List of Critically Endangered Species". Kea2 ( talk) 22:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC) reply

The article is showing the most recent "release" as 2008, but website and research appear that this is ongoing concern. However I couldn't find any specific mention on their site of a 2009 or 2010 "release". Are there still annual "release" of this publication? Cander0000 ( talk) 12:08, 20 March 2010 (UTC) reply

Hello! I would also like to add a suggestion relating to the "Releases" updates. It would be great to add recent releases as well. It seems like the IUCN website has releases up to 2022. JHK34 ( talk) 03:36, 23 September 2023 (UTC) < https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/media> JHK34 ( talk) 03:51, 23 September 2023 (UTC) reply

The "insects" part of the bar chart is unreadable - can we have a separate chart, with a more appropriate scale, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC) reply

It's been suggested that the article Red-listed should be merged/redirected to this one. I agree, but don't know how to do this. -- benjamil ( talk) 22:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC) reply

Can you tell me what are the colours of the different categories. Names or RGB values.

John of Cromer in China ( talk) mytime= Sun 01:55, wikitime= 17:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Please see the ongoing discussion on Talk:Conservation status#Capitalisation of conservation statuses.
Coreyemotela ( talk) 14:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC). reply

IUCN Red List --> IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Trackteur ( talk) 16:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC) reply

In a related matter, the titles of the various IUCN "list" articles are not consistent in terms of wording and capitalization:

• IUCN Red List of extinct species
• IUCN Red List extinct in the wild species
  • IUCN Red List extinct in the wild species (Animalia)
  • IUCN Red List extinct in the wild species (Plantae)
• Lists of IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species
  • IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species (Animalia)
  • IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species (Fungi)
  • IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species (Plantae)
  • IUCN Red List Critically Endangered species (Protista)
• Lists of IUCN Red List endangered species
  • IUCN Red List endangered species (Animalia)
  • IUCN Red List endangered species (Fungi)
  • IUCN Red List endangered species (Plantae)
  • IUCN Red List endangered species (Protista)
• Lists of IUCN Red List vulnerable species
  • IUCN Red List vulnerable species (Animalia)
  • IUCN Red List vulnerable species (Plantae)
  • IUCN Red List vulnerable species (Protista)
• Lists of IUCN Red List near threatened species
  • IUCN Red List near threatened species (Animalia)
  • IUCN Red List near threatened species (Plantae)
• IUCN Red List conservation dependent species
• Lists of IUCN Red List data deficient species
  • ...

Should these be "harmonized" a bit more? - dcljr ( talk) 23:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Harmonizing capitalization: done. I've now lower-cased "Critically Endangered" in article titles. Discussions seem to favour the lower capitalization especially where it is not ambiguous (e.g. this talk). Also most were already lower case. — Pengo 08:28, 20 May 2016 (UTC) reply

I have come across the the following from Oxfordreference:

1. Red for endangered species
2. Amber for vulnerable
3. White for rare
4. Green for out of danger
5. Grey for species that are indicated to be endangered, vulnerable, or rare but without any sufficient information to be properly classified.

which is certainly clashing with the criteria provided herewhich says there are 9 of them actually. Anybody, any opinion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sanjukta1995 ( talk • contribs) 15:07, 21 January 2017 (UTC) reply

The article mentions a version 4 of the Categories and Criteria for the IUCN Red List. The two references only go up to version 3.1 and I can find nothing online. The IUCN switched to more frequent publication, starting around 2012, using a year-n notation (e.g. version 2015-4) but were the criteria updated? Does the year-n notation refer to an update of the criteria as well or just the publication of an updated list? Most of the taxoboxes use version 3.1 for the status, even when using more recent assessments.    Jts1882 |  talk  09:59, 25 October 2017 (UTC) reply

Yep I 100% agree with this. I am struggling to find any evidence of there being version 4 released in 2015. I'm updating the IUCN conservation status of many plants with IUCN3.1 for this reason. I believe version 4 should be removed from the article-- Neb ( talk) 02:15, 27 October 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Neb: I've removed it. It's not mentioned in either source and I've seen nothing the suggest there is a version 4 in the four years since I made that comment. Looking at the history it originally got added as "Version 2015-4", which is a version of the redlist itself, not the version of the categories and criteria used for assessments contained in the redlist, and this was later changed to "Version 4 (2015)". —   Jts1882 |  talk  07:10, 27 October 2021 (UTC) reply

CD is missing (not explained) in Categories — Preceding unsigned comment added by MilanCela ( talk • contribs) 23:13, 13 November 2019 (UTC) reply

There are no details found. 190.6.236.75 ( talk) 01:41, 18 July 2022 (UTC) reply

Please explain. I'm afraid your comment makes no sense without you taking the effort to clarify any issue that needs addressing. Thanks. Nick Moyes ( talk) 07:43, 19 July 2022 (UTC) reply

I am a student in the introduction to applied ecology course that will be working on this article. I can't see to find a list of the criteria, that is referenced frequently throughout the article. Could it be beneficial to add a section listing the different criteria that the IUCN uses to determine the status of species? Cheers! Gabrielle.gagnon ( talk) 22:20, 22 September 2022 (UTC) reply

I also think that the addition of a section dedicated to the criteria would be beneficial since the only place I could find information of the criteria was a brief mention in the Categories section.

Rainsoaked33 ( talk) 00:37, 24 September 2022 (UTC) reply