iucn's species status

[LARTIS]

I am sorry if such a thread allready exists or the issue had equaly been adressed before, I could not find any particular related thread.

It has happened several times that i have read an article over species being declared several distinct populations that should be officialy recognized as different species.

Yet the iucn does not seem to recognize some of the new studies.
Several reason were named among these lack of professionals for certain species groups within the red list organization to adapt the data.
I have also read about the hypothesis of corruption and lobbies that have an interest in preventing such a conservative status.

I for example could not understand why lions were not split into two species keeping the subspecies, since they went thru the same division giraffes and rhinos for example went thru that gained them the species status.

I mean the differences are visibly distinct enough to tell them apart, representing an increased likelihood of genetic adaption

I have argued before that determination among the different groups are not necessarily comparable in the sense that there was not a specfic oercetangw a species would need to score ro be declared unique enough to get declared worthy of protection.

 

[LARTIS]

Another status I wanted to adress is the bighorn sheep that was reclassified into three subspecies, of which one was split into three lines.
One of these subsubspecies, the peninsular bighorn sheep ist endangered population.
Tho the us national wildlife, sorry forgot their full title, but they are official representives, declared to keep the protection status.

The status of a species seemed to be an essential tool to communicate the publics' perception, so indirectly sort of meant an existential right.

 

[LARTIS]

Species I think that are distinct enough to gain a conservation status are
arapaima
chinese giant salamander more than the two
tiger
leopard

Might add some more

 

[MRJ]

So I take it you are a splitter not a lumper?

Today, genetic analysis is giving us an insight into relationships that were simply not available 20 years ago. Many of these create both splits and lumps which can seem counter-intuitive when we look at the animals concerned. For instance, look at the new bird families that have emerged recently. For obvious reasons, the ICUN is fairly conservative in adopting changes, waiting till there is broad consensus. Also, genetics is evolving as a science, and so we will continue to see changes

None of that means we can't look at the conservation of threatened local populations. In many cases you will find IUCN criteria applied to populations at State or local government level. However I can't see there is much chance of the lion being split into two species.

 

[SusScrofa]

The whole species concept is so arbitrary anyways. Even with genetic analysis, there isnt really any concrete criteria as to what makes a population a true species. Just protect them all.