Definition: Species in Greatest Conservation Need

Definition: Animal species whose populations are rare, declining, or vulnerable in Minnesota and meet one or more of the following criteria:

1. Species whose populations are identified as being rare, declining, or vulnerable in Minnesota


2. Species at risk because they depend upon rare, declining, or vulnerable habitats (such as native prairies and grasslands; lakeshores and riparian corridors; wetlands; brushlands; unimpounded river and stream channels; unfragmented interior forest).


3. Species subject to other specific threats that make them vulnerable, such as:
   • Over-exploitation
   • Invasive species
   • Disease
   • Contaminants
   • Lack of citizen understanding and stewardship (such as killing large snakes thought to be venomous.
4. Species with certain characteristics that make them vulnerable, such as species that:
   • Require large home ranges/use multiple habitats
   • Depend upon large habitat patch sizes
   • Need special resources
   • Depend upon an ecological process (e.g. fire) that no longer operates within the natural range of variation
   • Are limited in their ability to recover on their own due to low dispersal ability or low reproductive rate
   • Have a highly localized or restricted distribution (Endemics)
   • Concentrate their populations during some time of the year (such as bats clustering in hibernacula and migratory stop-overs).
5. Species whose Minnesota populations are stable, but are declining in a substantial part of their range outside of Minnesota (such as common loon or black tern).

Full Definition  31kb

Minnesota vertebrate and bird biodiversity statistics 

Minnesota Species in Greatest Conservation Need