Assessment methodology - The conservation status and distribution of the breeding birds of prey

2.1 The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

^TM

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species^TM (IUCN Red List) is widely recognised as the most comprehensive, scientifically based source of information on the global conservation status of plant and animal species. IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are applied to individual taxon assessments (which contain information on as-pects such as ecology and life history, distribution, habitat, threats, current population trends and conservation measures), to determine their relative threat of extinction. Threatened species are listed as Critically Endangered

CR, Endangered ^EN or Vulnerable ^VU. Taxa that are either close to meeting the threatened thresholds or would be threatened were it not for ongoing conservation programmes, are classified as Near Threatened ^NT. Taxa evaluated as having a relatively low risk of extinction are classified as Least Concern ^LC. Also highlight-ed within the IUCN Rhighlight-ed List are taxa that cannot be evaluathighlight-ed due to insufficient knowlhighlight-edge, and which have therefore been assessed as Data Deficient ^DD. This category does not necessarily mean that the species is not threatened, only that its risk of extinction cannot be assessed from current data (IUCN 2012a).

Additionally, when regional or national assessments are conducted, the IUCN Red List Regional Guidelines (IUCN 2012b) are applied, and two additional categories are used: Regionally Extinct ^RE and Not Applicable

NA (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. IUCN Red List Categories at the regional level (IUCN 2012b). For a description of each of the global IUCN Red List Categories go to: http://www.iucnredlist.org/technical-documents/categories-and-criteria/2001-categories-criteria.

Extinct (EX)

Extinct inthe Wild (EW) Regionally Extinct (RE)

Critically Endangered (CR) Endangered (EN)

Vulnerable (VU)

Near Threatened (NT) Least Concern (LC)

Data Deficient (DD)

Not Applicable (NA)

Not Evaluated (NE)

Extinction Adequate data risk

Evaluated

All species

Elegible for Regional Assessment

Threatened categories

2.2. The IUCN Red List of North African Raptors

The extinction risk of a species can be assessed at a global, regional, or national level. A taxon can be in dif-ferent categories in the Global Red List and a Regional Red List. For instance, a species which is common worldwide and listed as Least Concern ^LC in the Global Red List could face a high level of threat and meet the criteria of a threatened category, for example Endangered ^EN, in a particular region. To avoid an over- or un-derestimation of the regional extinction risk of a species, the guidelines for application of IUCN Red List Criteria at regional level (IUCN 2012b) should be applied.

Therefore, the present regional assessment examines the regional conservation status of all raptors species breeding in the North African region. The status of each species has been assessed according to the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (IUCN 2012a) and the Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List criteria at Regional Levels (IUCN 2012b).

2.3. Geographical scope

The assessment covers the entire territory of the countries of the North Africa region that border the Mediterra-nean Sea: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt (Figure 1).

2.4 Taxonomical scope

This regional assessment evaluates a total of 46 native North African species of raptors. The scope of the North Africa assessment covers only native breeding raptor species confirmed in the region, including those breeders that have become Regionally Extinct in the last 100 years: the dark chanting-goshawk, cinereous vulture and Spanish imperial eagle (Chapter 6). The last two of these species could re-colonise North Africa in the near future due to population growth in the northern Mediterranean. The list also includes 10 species that are con-sidered Not Applicable for regional assessment because their occurrence in the region is marginal or uncertain, there are no recent confirmed records or they are only wintering or migrant species (Chapter 7).

Non-native species that may have established breeding populations as a result of escapes, deliberate introduc-tions or arrival on ships were not individually assessed as part of this project, in accordance with the guidelines of the IUCN Standards and Petitions Committee (2019).

Rüppell's vulture deserves a special mention. The species was originally distributed in savanna in the Sahel, Ethiopia and Somalia, but it seems to have been extending its range into the North African region in the last 10 years because of global change and habitat degradation in its breeding areas in the southern Sahel (Chapter 6).

The black kite has been assessed as including the subspecies Milvus migrans aegyptius (yellow-billed kite), which has very recently been treated as a separate species on the global Red List (BirdLife International, 2020a);

therefore, in future assessments it will be assessed separately.

Extinction risk

2.5 Preliminary assessments and review process

A provisional species list of raptors breeding in the region was compiled in 2019 by the experts of BirdLife In-ternational and IUCN-Med. Information on habitats and ecology, distribution, threats, conservation measures, etc. was sourced and collated for all the native breeding raptors occurring in the North African region. All the available relevant information on each species was input into the IUCN species database (Species Information Service–SIS). Spatial data were sourced to produce species distribution maps.

Key distribution and status information and population estimates were obtained from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN, 2020) and more than 100 literature references, of which the following should be highlighted: The birds of Egypt (Goodman and Meininger, 1989), Oiseaux d'Algérie–Birds of Algeria (Isenmann and Moali, 2000), The birds of Morocco: an annotated checklist (Thévenot et al., 2003), Oiseaux de Tunisie–

Birds of Tunisia (Isenmann et al., 2005), Oiseaux de Libye–Birds of Libya (Isenmann et al., 2016), Oiseaux du Sahara Atlantique Marocain (Bergier et al., 2017), African Raptors (Clark and Davies, 2018), The OSME Region List of Bird Taxa, Part A: Non-passerines. Version 5.1: July 2019 (OSME, 2019) and eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance [web application] (eBird, 2020).

The species information was then reviewed at a regional workshop held in Tunisia in February 2020, where each species’ assessment was evaluated by regional and international experts to ensure that the information present-ed was complete and correct, and that the Rpresent-ed List category had been applipresent-ed correctly.

Rüppell's vulture (Gyps rueppelli) is one of the five Afrotropical raptors breeding in North Africa. It was originally distributed in the Sahel and eastern Africa, but it seems to be colonising North Africa. It is classified as Critically Endangered (CR).

IUCN Red List assessments for 46 native species of raptors present in North Africa were reviewed and validated during the Tunisia workshop by the best regional experts. The status of each species was assessed according to the IUCN basic Red Listing procedures and documents, including the IUCN Red List categories and criteria (IUCN, 2012a) and the Guidelines for application of IUCN Red List criteria at regional and national levels (IUCN, 2012b). Following the workshop, the assessments were reviewed and supplementary information added from re-cent publications where appropriate; any remaining issues were resolved through communication with workshop participants.

2.6. Assessment review process

Experts from North African countries as well as on some raptor species were then asked to review the species summary reports using a peer-review methodology. Their comments, together with any additional up-to-date information, were included in the assessments.

Supported by relevant data sources and the scientific literature, these final regional assessments are therefore the outcome of information exchange and agreement among the numerous North African raptor specialists involved and their networks of informed colleagues.

在文檔中 The conservation status and distribution of the breeding birds of prey of North Africa (頁 26-30)