Kerala to have its own regional red list of birds-
✓Kerala will soon have its own red list of birds.
✓Once it gets ready, Kerala will be the first State to have a region-specific red list of birds.
● About the Regional Bird Red list:
✓The Kerala Bird Monitoring Collective led by Kerala Agricultural University and the Bird Count India will conduct the regional red list assessment.
✓It will be done on the basis of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines
✓It will be a decentralised process like how the Kerala Bird Atlas was prepared.
● Need of such red list:
✓There are some limitations with the global IUCN red list as it is prepared in a global context.
✓A species seen common at the global level may be a threatened species at the regional level.
✓So a regional red list is needed to conserve that species at the local level.
● Criterias under IUCN Guidelines:
✓The IUCN guidelines for preparing the red list have five main criteria.
✓The population size reduction measured over 10 years or three generations is one of the major guidelines.
✓Geographic range on the basis of extent of occurrence or area of occupancy is another.
✓Small population size and decline; very small or restricted population; and quantitative analysis indicating the probability of extinction in the wild are the other criteria.
● About Kerala Bird Atlas:
✓It was prepared between 2015 and 2020
✓It was conducted as a citizen science-driven exercise with participation of over 1,000 volunteers of the bird watching community
✓It provides a solid baseline data about distribution and abundance of various bird species in the State
✓It accounts for nearly three lakh records of 361 species, including 94 very rare species, 103 rare species, 110 common species, 44 very common species, and 10 most abundant species.
✓According to the atlas, most of the endemics are concentrated in the Western Ghats while the threatened species are cited mostly along the coast.
