IUCN red list

The most thorough assessment of land and marine mammals in 12 years, just published in Science, says that a quarter of the world's wild mammal species are at risk of extinction.

It took nearly 2,000 experts in more than 100 countries five years to complete the research. In other words: this one's big, and ought to be paid some serious attention.

While land mammals are most threatened by habitat loss and hunting, marine mammals are more in danger from bycatch, ship strikes and pollution.

Props to the folks over at the Science blog Zooillogix for a great post this week about scientists in New England who are studying the Atlantic's threatened population of right whales by collecting and analyzing their floating, um, poop.

Joking aside, analyzing whale poop -- or any other method of determining the health of certain whale populations -- is apparently needed. This week, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species revealed that while there is some good news for whales and some bad, the bottom line was that more data is needed. The IUCN was unable to assess more than half of the world's cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) because of a lack of data.