Methods and Data

This report is the responsibility of a national working group composed of representatives from all provinces and territories and two federal govern-ment agencies — Environment Canada (Canadian Wildlife Service) and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The national working group established which groups of species would be ranked in this first report and the general guidelines for the criteria that would be used to derive general status ranks. Provincial and territorial representatives held the primary responsibility for establishing lists of species that occur in their province or territory. These representatives were also responsible for the sourcing, compilation, and interpretation of the information that would both inform their province’s or territory’s ranks for given species and serve as a resource tailored to the particular needs of that province or territory. Once provincial and territorial general status ranks were established, the national working group was the body responsible for assigning a Canada-wide rank: a national general status rank that interprets the overall state of the species in Canada based on the information about populations in each province or territory. Click here to see a list of national working group members.

The remainder of this section provides more detail on:

• Species Diversity: a summary of the Diversity and number of species assessed in Wild Species 2000.
• Reporting Units: an explanation of the reporting units used to evaluate and compare species in this report
• Assessment Criteria: an explanation of the criteria used in evaluating the status of species in this report
• Glossary: a glossary of terms used throughout the report