Assessment of red list of birds in China

Abstract

There are 1,372 bird species, including 77 endemic species in China. The over-exploitation of resources, habitat loss, fragmentation, and environmental pollution challenges the conservation of Chi- nese birds. In order to comprehensively evaluate the status of threatened birds in China, the Red List of Vertebrates (Bird) in China, supported by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Re- public of China, was initiated. According to IUCN red list criteria, this evaluation was accomplished by 27 researchers following the steps: confirm the evaluated species, data collection, preliminary evalua- tion, preliminary check, interactive check and finalization. Our evaluation demonstrated that three spe- cies (white stork Ciconia ciconia, siberian spruce grouse Falcipennis falcipennis, and sarus crane Grus antigone) are characterized as Regionally Extinct (RE), 15 species among them are Critically Endan- gered (CR), 51 species are Endangered (EN), 80 species are Vulnerable (VU), 190 species are Near Threatened (NT), 876 species are characterized as of Least Concern (LC), and 157 species are Data De- ficient (DD). Overall, 146 bird species (10.6% of the birds of China) were threatened (including CR, EN, and VU), and of these, 29 endemic species (37.7%) were listed as threatened. The proportion of