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.
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.
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.
Risk 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).
COSEWIC provides online updated status reports on designated species.
Criteria
COSEWIC bases its quantitative criteria for species' status assessment on the revised
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...
, the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global
conservation status of
biological species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of classification an ...
. COSEWIC provides
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...
(IUCN), the world's main authority on the conservation status of species, with a
Regional Red List.
Citations
References
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External links
COSEWIC's website
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada website
(archived 2007)
Nature conservation organizations based in Canada
Organizations established in 1977
Wildlife conservation in Canada
1977 establishments in Canada
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