Least Concern

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Least Concern

Least Concern (LC) is an IUCN

World Conservation Union

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is an international organization dedicated to natural resource Conservation ethic....
category assigned to extant species or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened

Threatened species

Threatened species are any species which are vulnerable to extinction in the near future.World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories: Vulnerable species, endangered species, and Critically endangered species, depending...
, nor Near Threatened

Near Threatened

Near Threatened is a conservation status assigned to species or lower taxa that may be considered threatened species with extinction in the near future, although it does not currently qualify for the threatened status....
, nor (prior to 2001) Conservation Dependent

Conservation Dependent

Conservation Dependent was an IUCN Red List assigned to species or lower taxa which were dependent on conservation efforts to prevent the taxon becoming threatened species with extinction....
. Many common species such as the Rock Pigeon

Rock Pigeon

The Rock Pigeon , or Rock Dove, is a member of the bird family Columbidae . In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as the "pigeon"....
, Common Juniper

Juniperus communis

Juniperus communis, the Common Juniper, is a species in the genus Juniperus, in the family Cupressaceae. It has the largest range of any woody plant, throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere from the Arctic south in mountains to around 30?N latitude in North America, Europe and Asia....
, the Snail Kite

Snail Kite

The Snail Kite, Rostrhamus sociabilis, is a bird of prey within the family Accipitridae, which also includes the eagles, hawks and Old World vultures....
and Sacred Kingfisher

Sacred Kingfisher

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Encyclopedia

Least Concern (LC) is an IUCN

World Conservation Union

Threatened species

Near Threatened

Conservation Dependent

Rock Pigeon

The Rock Pigeon , or Rock Dove, is a member of the bird family Columbidae . In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as the "pigeon"....
, Common Juniper

Juniperus communis

Snail Kite

The Snail Kite, Rostrhamus sociabilis, is a bird of prey within the family Accipitridae, which also includes the eagles, hawks and Old World vultures....
and Sacred Kingfisher

Sacred Kingfisher

The Sacred Kingfisher is a tree kingfisher found in the mangroves, forests, and river valleys of Australia, Fiji, Indonesia, New Caledonia, New Zealand , Norfolk Island, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and the Wallis and Futuna Islands....
are assigned the Least Concern category.

Species cannot be assigned the Least Concern category unless they have had their population status evaluated. That is, adequate information is needed to make a direct, or indirect, assessment of its risk of extinction based on its distribution and/or population status.

Since 2001 the category has had the acronym "LC", following the IUCN 2001 Categories & Criteria (version 3.1). However, around 20% of Least Concern taxa (3261 of 15636) in the IUCN database use the code "LR/lc", which indicates they have not been re-evaluated since 2000. Prior to 2001 "least concern" was a subcategory of the "Lower Risk" category and assigned the code "LR/lc" or (lc).

While "Least Concern" is not considered a red listed category by the IUCN, the 2006 Red List

IUCN Red List

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , created in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global Conservation movement status of plant and animal species....
still assigns the category to 15636 taxa. The number of animal species listed in this category totals 14033 (which includes one novel species, Moss Frogs). There are also 101 animal subspecies listed and 1500 plant taxa (1410 species, 55 subspecies, and 35 varieties). There are also two animal subpopulations listed: the Australasian and Southern African subpopulations of Spiny Dogfish

Spiny dogfish

The spiny dogfish, spurdog, or piked dogfish, Squalus acanthias, is one of the best known of the dogfish, members of the family Squalidae in the order Squaliformes....
. No fungi or protista have the classification, though only four species in those kingdoms have been evaluated by the IUCN. Human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
s qualify for this category, and in 2008 were formally assessed as such by the IUCN.

Similar classifications

Canada's COSEWIC
Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d??tre is to identify species at risk" in Canada....
designates Wildlife Species
Evolutionary Significant Unit

An Evolutionarily Significant Unit is a population of organisms that is considered distinct for purposes of Conservation ethic. Delineating ESUs is important when considering conservation action....
as Not At Risk (NAR) when they have been evaluated to be not at risk of extinction given the current circumstances.

The NatureServe conservation status uses the ranking of Secure (G5) for "demonstrably widespread, abundant, and secure" species which have a stable population

The WWF
World Wide Fund for Nature

The World Wide Fund for Nature is an Internationalism non-governmental organization for the Conservation biology, Environmental science and Restoration ecology of the environment , formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in the United States and Canada....
uses "relatively stable/relatively intact" (RS) as the least concern status for ecoregion
Ecoregion

An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecology and geographically defined area smaller than a "realm" or "ecozone". Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural community and species....
s.

Many category or ranking systems simply do not list Least Concern species. For example Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
's EPBC Act

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is an Statute of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and culturally significant places....
does not have a category for "not at risk" species, although such species may be found amongst the lists of "unsuccessful nominations" or "removed" (delisted) fauna and flora. There are, however, other reasons species may be found on these lists, such as taxonomic changes. The US Endangered Species Act

Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 or ESA is the most wide-ranging of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s....
likewise does not list species which are not at risk.