I am so pleased to see our paper on prevented bird and mammal extinctions published in @ConLetters! We found that for at least 28 bird and mammal species, conservation action prevented their extinction. https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12762 @SciencesNCL @BirdLife_News
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We wanted to measure progress towards the Convention on Biological Diversity’s target on preventing extinctions, and came up with a shortlist of bird and mammal species, based on the @IUCNRedList. The species were: close to extinction at any point since 1993
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(the year of Convention on Biological Diversity), with significant threats, and actions to address the threats. We compiled information on each species, then undertook expert elicitation to identify probabilities that conservation action prevented extinction of the species.
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We report the minimum as species with a probability ≥ 90%, and the maximum as species with >50%. Since 1993, 28 - 48 bird and mammal species extinctions have been prevented, and 11-25 since 2010 (when the Convention's Aichi Targets came into force).
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Among the top conservation actions for preventing extinctions are invasive species control, ex-situ conservation, & site/area protection for birds, and legislation, species re-introduction, & ex-situ conservation for mammals. All figures and code at https://github.com/rbolam/Prevented_bird_and_mammal_extinctions
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While we know that many many species are in decline, and much more effort is needed to prevent future extinctions, we found that it is possible to prevent extinctions of species even when there are only few individuals left, or threats are causing dramatic declines.
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Finally, a HUGE thank you to the many people who have contributed to this paper - the project wouldn't have been possible without you! Special thanks to @stubutchart @philipjkmcgowan @follow_the_hoff @AnaSLRodrigues @IUCNscience and of course @MairLouise
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