The New Zealand Threat Classification System is used by the Department of Conservation to assess conservation priorities of species in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

The list was developed since the IUCN Red List

IUCN Red List

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...

, a similar conservation status

Conservation status

The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group is still extant and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future...

 system, had some shortcomings for the unique requirements of conservation ranking in New Zealand.

Categories

Species that are ranked are assigned categories and

Introduced and Naturalised
These are any species that are deliberately or accidentally introduced into New Zealand.

Vagrant
Vagrants

Vagrancy (biology)

Vagrancy is a phenomenon in biology whereby individual animals appear well outside their normal range; individual animals which exhibit vagrancy are known as vagrants. The term accidental is sometimes also used...

are taxa that are rare in New Zealand that have made their own way and do not breed successfully.

Coloniser
These taxa have arrived in new Zealand without human help and reproduce successfully.

Migrant
Migrant species are those that visit New Zealand as part of their life cycle.

Data Deficient
This category lists taxa for which insufficient information is available to make as assessment on conservation status.

Extinct
Taxa for which there is no reasonable doubt that no individuals exist are ranked as extinct. For these lists only species that have become extinct since 1840 are listed.

Threatened
This category has three major divisions:

• Acutely Threatened

This division is further broken down into:

• Nationally Critical - equivalent to the IUCN category of Critically endangered
• Nationally Endangered - equivalent to the IUCN category of Endangered
• Nationally Vulnerable - equivalent to the IUCN category of Vulnerable

• Chronically Threatened

This has two categories:

• Serious Decline
• Gradual Decline

• At Risk

This has two categories:

• Range Restricted
• Sparse

Not Threatened
If taxa fit into none of the other categories they are listed in the Not Threatened category.

Qualifiers

A series of qualifiers are used to give additional information on the threat classification:

EW	Extinct in the Wild	Exists only in cultivation or in captivity
CD	Conservation Dependent	Likely to move to a higher threat category if current management ceases
DP	Data Poor	Confidence in the listing is low due to the poor data available for assessment
RC	Recovering	Total population showing a sustained recovery
ST	Stable	Total population stable
SO	Secure Overseas	Secure in other parts of its natural range outside New Zealand
TO	Threatened Overseas	Threatened in those parts of its natural range outside New Zealand
HI	Human Induced	Present distribution is a result of direct or indirect human activity
RF	Recruitment Failure	Current population may appear stable but the age structure is such that catastrophic declines are likely in the future
EF	Extreme Fluctuations	Extreme unnatural population fluctuations, or natural fluctuations overlaying human-induced declines, that increase the threat of extinction
OL	One Location	Found at one location (geographically or ecologically distinct area) in which a single event (e.g. a predator irruption) could soon affect all individuals of the taxon

External links

• New Zealand Threat Classification System