Species Overview & Action

Introduction to LHF's work on species

Large Herbivore species are the subjects of the LHF work. Species in the context of the natural communities, habitats and ecosystems, including regard to the ‘Human Dimensions’. Conservation and restoration of Large Herbivore species in the wild is a focal part of LHF’ s mission in the bio-geographical working area of the Palaearctic.

Large herbivores, evolved, adapted and specialized to almost all types of ecosystems. From the arctic tundra, the boreal and deciduous forests, high mountains, arid and cold steppes and dry cold deserts, down to wetlands, warm arid lands and hot deserts; large herbivore species are integral and functional parts of the ecosystem.

Some 34 species of large herbivores (excluding subspecies) can be found in the different ecosystems of the Palaearctic. A large number of these species is threatened. Some species, like the ancestors of our (worldwide) domestic cattle and horses have gotten extinct over the last few centuries. Some sub-species even died out in recent years. Some are on the brink of extinction, like the wild camel. A sharp decline has occurred over the last 50 years, culminating in the last 10 years, with the political and land use changes, following the end of the Soviet Union. But also, some species were more or less saved and survived, like the Przewalski horse, European bison and Saiga antelope. Conservation and restoration for these species has positive perspective and is now underway, with coordination and support by LHF.

For some of the threatened species, the status and situation is known and where possible conservation programs are in place or under development, often with LHF involvement. However, for a high number of endangered species, knowledge is scarce, the situation and status is unclear, or the general and political situation in certain areas makes it very difficult to start conservation work.

In the ‘LHF Status Report 2007 of the Large Herbivores of the Palaearctic’, a first complete overview (9,43 MB) of the regarding species has been made, but need a permanent update. In this part of the website you'll find permanentely updated factsheets of the circa 45 species in the Eurasian part of the Palaearctic region.

In the mean time the Red List Species web pages of IUCN provide a huge source of knowledge of all red list species, including the less threatened ones. But both websites are different of character and target group and complement each other in goals and targets. To optimally link both websites and make "1+1=3" the LHF website will be focussed on the concrete actions through the development of a project portfolio and fundraising, in close cooperation with IUCN and other relevant organisations.

An important process is the open discussion (WIKI-like) that will lead to well accepted descriptions of the species, the ecosystems and the conservation and rehabilitation needs, leading to concrete project proposals and actions, both in the field and in the political arena.

Species in their landscapes

The Palaearctic Ecozone is a huge area, where many species live. The LHF region is described on the home page.

The choise for this area, based on ample advice, made it possible to make a species selection: we selected 34 large herbivore species in the region of our first priority and 7 species in the region of Northern China and Tibet. Seen the complexity of the area and our capacity we had to decide to give these species a lower priority - but if you have interesting ideas and challenges, please let us know.

The priority species are:

LHF riority Species

The species, found for the region Northern China, Tibet are (less priority for LHF):

LHF priority species Northern China - Tibet

Species Overview Report for Eurasia

An important working tool for LHF is the "Species Overview Report for Eurasia", in draft published in 2007 as a the Large herbivore Foundation's Status Report for the Large Herbivores of the Palaearctic.

The IUCN Red List Species is leading for the global species assessment, it is a flagship product of IUCN/SSC. Its website is comprehensive, authoritative and the leading product in this field. The new SIS (Species Information Service) online data input system ensures that the Red List website becomes more detailed and relevant and will contain updated and fully up to date information. The IUCN/SSC Specialist Groups are long-established global networks of leading experts, bringing together academics, conservation biologists, geneticists, protected area managers, researchers and field workers.

LHF is very happy being able to cooperate with IUCN and their experts. LHF aims to bring this knowledge and all kind of other knowledge, ambitions and challenges about all large herbivores in its part of the Eurasian continent together. In 2010 - and that is in full progress now - for all species and their landsapes factsheets will be made and published in an open website. It will provide easy accessable information about the species occurring in the area, such as taxonomy, species information, conservation status, projects, sources of information, etc.

Special attention will be given to recommendations concerning:

policy development,
legal protection,
spatial requirements,
area and species management,
communications,
concrete project interventions through the identifiaction of priority projects, gathered in a project portfolio,
giving room for fundraising and other challenging initiatives.

The LHF Network experts and many others, will be consulted and an "open source technique" will be provided via internet for commentary.

Sources used

In the preparation phase we made use of the LHF Status Report 2007 of the Large Herbivores of the Palaeartctic.

IUCN was so kind as to give LHF permission to make use of the content of the species descriptions on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species website.

The factsheets are being reviewed by an array of specialists and experts. For the description of the species and their habitats, often texts from Wikipedia has been used. The reviewers are mentioned under the chapter: Scientific Referees. To improve for a lager public the readibility, scientific references in the texts are restricted. Authors are only mentioned in the tables with the numbers of the species populations or in case of scientific discussions on certain themes. For further references we refer to the scientific background docementation in the IUCN-factsheets of the Red List Threatened Species.

For literature, specially used for the content of the factsheet, is referred to the chapter 'Sources'.

Photos are taken from our own stock, provided by the LHF network. For some thumbnails, pictures has been used found on internet.

Credits and rights

To illustrate the webpages (and for the sake of the protection of these animals) we have made use of photos of which it is not always clear who is the possessor of the credits and rights. If you feel yourself infringed in your rights or if you know the source of a photo, please let us know. Please accept our appologizes in advance for any inconvenience, and we are hoping you will support our work.

The factsheets of the large herbivore in Eurasia

The species, highlighted with a thumbnail are described, based on the Red List factsheets of endangered species (IUCN) and the LHF Status Report 2007 of the Large Herbivores in Eurasia of the Palaearctic, completed with other descriptions. Your comment and additions (if possible in the form of concrete ext proposals) are mostly welcomed.