Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC, French: Comité sur la situation des espèces en péril au Canada, COSEPAC) is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d’être is to identify species at risk" in Canada.^[1] It designates the conservation status of wild species.

It was established in 1977 to provide a single, scientifically sound classification of wildlife species at risk of extinction.^[2] In the 2002 Species at Risk Act, COSEWIC was appointed as the body to identify and assess a species status. Although the status assigned by COSEWIC is not legally binding, it does report its results to the government and the public. The report is influential toward the addition of species to the List of Wildlife Species at Risk by the Minister of the Environment.^[2][3]

Risk categories

All categories.

By December 2013 there were "686 wildlife species in various COSEWIC risk categories, including 196 Special Concern (SC), 166 Threatened (T), 302 Endangered (E), 22 Extirpated (XT) (i.e. no longer found in the wild in Canada) and 15 wildlife species that are Extinct (X). The other category is not at risk (NAR).^[4]

COSEWIC provides online updated status reports on designated species.^[5]

Criteria

COSEWIC bases its quantitative criteria for species' status assessment on the revised IUCN Red List,^[4] the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. COSEWIC provides International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world's main authority on the conservation status of species, with a Regional Red List.

IUCN. (2001). IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria: Version 3.1. IUCN Species Survival Commission. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. ii + 30 pp.

Citations

References

• "Wildlife Species Search", Environment Canada, 11 July 2011 [2002], retrieved 18 December 2013 
• "Learning from the past to protect the future", COSEWIC, Press release, 1 December 2013, retrieved 19 December 2013 

External links

• Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada website
• Species at Risk website

Threatened species by region
By region	Blue-listed Environmental Vulnerability Index Regional Red List
Australasia	Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 ROTAP Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 Threatened ecological community Trade in Endangered Species Act 1989
Canada	Species at Risk Act Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada
Europe	European Endangered Species Programme Funds for Endangered Parrots
South Africa	Endangered Wildlife Trust
United States	Distinct population segment Endangered Species Act Endangered Species Act Amendments of 1978 Endangered species recovery plan Endangered Wolf Center National Wildlife Refuge NatureServe conservation status The Nature Conservancy
Lists	Asia List of endangered and protected species of China Endangered mammals of India List of endangered animals in India List of endangered species in Pakistan List of threatened species of the Philippines List of endangered species in Vietnam Europe Threatened mammals of Europe Endangered plants of Europe List of United Kingdom Biodiversity Action Plan species List of extinct and endangered species of Italy List of extinct and endangered species of Lithuania North America List of endangered plants in North America List of endangered species in North America Endangered mammals and birds of the United States List of threatened mammals of the United States List of threatened birds of the United States List of threatened reptiles and amphibians of the United States Elsewhere Threatened fauna of Australia List of threatened flora of Australia Official list of endangered flora of Brazil List of threatened mammals of Brazil List of threatened birds of Brazil