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The amazing and prolific Kent Carpenter of IUCN and Old Dominion University responded. The reason that red and pink corals aren't on the IUCN red list is because they HAVEN'T HAD TIME TO DO AN ASSESSMENT YET. It was a completely erroneous argument by Japan and other opponents, and by the IWMC World "Conservation" Trust.
Other points made by Kent:
- 5 years ago, only 1% of IUCN red list species were marine.
- IUCN is due to assess over 20,000 marine species over the next five years
- All stony corals have been assessed and 1/3 were found to be threatened with extinction
My guess is that if red and pink corals are assessed for the IUCN Red List, they would be found 'vulnerable' or 'threatened with extinction.'
So my question is, now that this has been raised, can IUCN commit to doing a Red List assessment of precious and/or deep-sea corals? I know you only have a few thousand other species to consider, but if you could bump red and pink corals to the top of the list, we'd all appreciate it.
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