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Return to main story Talking about extinction NNSL (Oct 13/97) - Determining whether a species is endangered or not is not as simple as counting heads and issuing an alert if the number of individuals falls below an arbitrary level. Although population is the most important of the factors used to determine how healthy a species is -- after all, when it gets to zero, the species is extinct -- it is not the sole factor. The ultimate decision is made by a committee made up of federal, provincial and territorial representatives that moves species on and off its list each year. It currently lists 291 species at risk. That list is the best-known, but provinces with their own endangered-species laws often include animals that the committee does not consider endangered. The committee puts plants and animals in need of protection into five classes, ranked here from most severely in need to least. The 24 species in need of protection found in the Northwest Territories are listed after the definition. Extinct: a species formerly indigenous to Canada that no longer exists anywhere. Extirpated: a species no longer existing in the wild in Canada but which does exist elsewhere. Endangered: a species threatened with imminent extinction or extirpation in all or some of its Canadian range. In the NWT, that includes Beluga and bowhead whales, Peary caribou, Eskimo curlews, Peregrine falcon anatums and whooping cranes. Threatened: a species likely to become endangered in Canada if the factors affecting its vulnerability are not reversed. In the NWT, that takes in the eastern Hudson Bay Beluga whale population, Peary caribou, wood bison, Great Lakes deepwater sculpin and the shortjaw cisco. Vulnerable: a species at risk due to low or declining numbers, small range or for some other reason, but not yet threatened. In the NWT that takes in the eastern High Arctic and Baffin Island Belugas, grizzly bears, polar bears, wolverines, woodland caribou, caspian terns, ivory gulls, Ross' gulls, short-eared owls, tundra Peregrine falcons, blackline pricklebacks, freshwater Arctic fourhorn sculpins and Monarch butterflies. |