Although flawed, the most powerful tool for protecting biodiversity in the United States is the Endangered Species Act, which requires the use of the best available science to ensure that endangered and threatened species are not put in jeopardy of extinction. Unfortunately, the best available science mandate is virtually meaningless and imposes no additional scientific rigor in agency decision...

The global species extinction crisis has provided the impetus for elaborate translocation, captive breeding, and cloning programs, but more extreme actions may be necessary. We used mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome, and nuclear lactoferrin-encoding gene sequencing to identify a wild population of a pure-strain endangered bovid (Bos javanicus) introduced into northern Australia over 150 years ago...

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is often advocated as a tool to assist decision-making in conservation investment and research focus. It is frequently suggested that research efforts should prioritize species in higher threat categories and those that are Data Deficient (DD). We assessed the linkage between IUCN listing and research effort in DD and Critically Endangered (CR) species, t...

The survey was undertaken during the period from October -2012 to September -2013 in the Vattakkayal, Sakthikulangara panchayath, Kollam district. The major objective of this study was to find out the Biodiversity status of fishes in Vattakkayal of Kollam district, South India. Fishes were collected from the study area and the Meristic and Morphometric characters were measured and fishes were i...

Because certain indigenous peoples have lived in the same habitats for centuries, their languages often encode traditional ecological knowledge about interactions between plant and animal species that occur in those habitats. This local knowledge is sometimes complementary to more broadly derived knowledge accrued by academically trained field ecologists. In this analysis of recent ethnoecologi...

With few exceptions, the US Endangered Species Act requires the designation of “critical habitat” for threatened and endangered species. This provides important protections, including a prohibition against adverse modification of designated habitat by federal agencies. Scientists with the US Fish and Wildlife Service develop critical habitat designations, which are then peer reviewed before bei...

The intense exploitation of turtles in Asian markets has contributed to declines in turtle populations across the continent. Threequarters of Asia’s turtles are threatened and half are endangered. A recent workshop on the Asian turtle crisis identified taxonomic studies of widespread species as a priority for research because these low risk species may include unrecognized, narrowly distributed...

We compiled a checklist of the amphibians and reptiles of the state of Coahuila, Mexico. The list comprises 133 species (24 amphibians, 109 reptiles), representing 27 families (9 amphibians, 18 reptiles) and 65 genera (16 amphibians, 49 reptiles). Coahuila has a high richness of lizards in the genus Sceloporus. Coahuila has relatively few state endemics, but has several regional endemics. Overl...

This paper reviews the distribution of seabird species with the WCPFC Area. From a review of the distributions of 99 species of albatross and petrel, 16 species of albatross and 60 species of petrel occur within the area of the WCPFC, and are potentially vulnerable to fisheries bycatch. These include species with IUCN classification of Critically Endangered (n = 1), Endangered (n = 7), Vulnerab...

The history of the Red List of Japanese vascular plants is briefly reviewed for editing and research. Especially on the results of recent monitoring, the present status of information and conservation activities on the endangered plants in Japan is discussed and the dynamics of the Japanese flora are taken up, in relation to basic research on plant biodiversity on the Japanese Archipelago. The ...