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Biodiversity
Threatened species
Since human settlement, many of New Zealand’s unique native species such as all species of moa, the Haast’s eagle and the huia have become extinct. Many more of our native species are currently threatened with our levels of threatened species rated among the highest in the world.
Extinction risk is determined by classifying species using the Department of Conservation's Threat Classification System which takes into account national distribution and abundance, as well as other variables.
In some species groups, a large proportion of native species are threatened. For example, all of New Zealand’s native frog species are threatened as a result of loss of habitats and predation. Diseases are probably also responsible for declines in some species, with a chytrid fungus and a ranavirus recently detected in some native frogs. Five out of six New Zealand bat species are endangered because of predation and loss of the large trees they require as roosts.
Not enough is known about some groups to reliably determine their threat status. For example, many fungi and plants are listed as ‘data deficient’, which means insufficient information is available to determine whether they are endangered.
Distribution of threat ranking by native species group according to the Department of Conservation’s Threat Classification System, 2005
| Group | Threatened |
Total threatened |
Data-deficient1 species |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acutely threatened |
Chronically threatened |
At risk |
||||
| Bats | 4 |
0 |
1 |
5 |
1 |
|
| Birds | 62 |
25 |
66 |
153 |
50 |
|
| Reptiles | 10 |
23 |
34 |
67 |
12 |
|
| Frogs | 3 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
0 |
|
| Freshwater fish | 6 |
14 |
6 |
26 |
21 |
|
| Invertebrates | Freshwater | 14 |
3 |
97 |
114 |
29 |
| Land-based | 237 |
52 |
654 |
943 |
1,541 |
|
| Plants | Bryophytes2 |
88 |
0 |
87 |
175 |
8 |
| Vascular plants | 175 |
108 |
585 |
868 |
155 |
|
| Fungi | 49 |
11 |
5 |
65 |
1,445 |
|
| Total | 648 |
236 |
1,536 |
2,420 |
3,262 |
|
Notes:
(1) Species for which data is deficient may be rare or threatened, but not enough is known to classify them that way.
(2) Bryophytes are non-vascular plants: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts.
Data source: Environment New Zealand 2007.
This information has come from the latest national state of the environment report Environment New Zealand 2007.
Last updated: December 2008
