Why does the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species include species that are not threatened?
A. Although the list is officially named the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it does include species that are currently not threatened. There are nine Red List categories of threat (see the Introduction section). The Least Concern (LC) category is used to highlight species that have a relatively low extinction risk compared with those taxa that are assessed as threatened or Near Threatened. This usually includes widespread and abundant taxa, but can also include taxa that have a restriced range but have no current or potential threats, or for very widespread and currently abundant taxa that are very slowly declining. By including Least Concern species in the Red List, a more complete picture of the overall status of the taxonomic group is given. For example, in 2009, 21% of all described mammals were threatened; this is known only because all described mammals had been assessed for the Red List in 2009 and this made it possible to compare all threatened against all non-threatened
