7 Texas mammals listed as threatened on Global Mammal Assessment

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When the Global Mammal Assessment project results are announced this week at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain, there will be at least seven Texas species on the globally threatened list. The species of mammals from Texas that are classified as under some level of threat based upon the IUCN categories are commonly known as Mexican long-tongued bat, Mexican long-nosed bat, Myotis sodalis, robust cottontail, desert pocket gopher, Texas kangaroo rat, and banner-tailed kangaroo rat. For more information and a graphic showing their scientific name and territory in Texas, see http://agnews.tamu.edu .

The assessment's lead organization is the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) in Gland, Switzerland, but Texas A&M University is a major collaborator.

The Global Mammal Assessment's technical report has also been accepted into the journal Science. A news release prepared by the IUCN on the assessment's Red List of threatened species can be found at: www.iucn.org (then scroll down to "IUCN Red List reveals world's mammals in crisis"). WHO: The Global Mammal Assessment, a collaboration of 1,700 scientists from 130 countries, provides information on the biology and conservation status of all of the world's approximately 5,500 mammalian species. About one in four of these species are currently threatened with extinction at some level, according to the assessment. Dr. Thomas E. Lacher, Jr., Texas A&M University's wildlife and fisheries sciences department head at College Station, Texas, and Dr. John Lamoreux, research assistant in the department, are among 8,000 international environmental decision-makers attending the World Conservation Congress.

A key and lasting element of major importance to the scientific community, according to Lacher, is an online data-base of all the species in the assessment. This can be found at: http://www.iucnredlist.org/. He said it is the most comprehensive and scientifically-based body of work ever compiled on threatened and endangered mammals.

Source: Texas A&M University - Agricultural Communications