ASTANA ( WNAM MONITORING): The new edition of Kazakhstan’s Red Book (the book of endangered species) will include 217 species.
The updated list excludes 19 species, including two species of mollusks and 17 species of insects. Meanwhile, 11 rare species, including the jungle cat, black vulture, and three scorpion species, have been added. The new edition also features their habitat maps, enhancing its value for research.
Around 40 zoologists contributed to the new edition, clarifying the names of 59 species and assessing extinction threats based on international standards. For the first time, a Kazakh-language terminology commission ensured that the names aligned with national scientific and linguistic standards.
The Director General of Kazakhstan’s Institute of Zoology, Roman Yashenko, said that the institute was working on the first volume of the Red Book, which is focused on animals, while the second volume, dedicated to plants, is being developed by the Institute of Botany and Phytointroduction.
“The Red Book was founded in Kazakhstan in 1978. It should be noted that at that time, according to the rules, our Kazakhstan’s Red Book also included those species that were not threatened on the territory of Kazakhstan. But, since these species were included in the All-[Soviet] Union Red Book, they automatically ended up in our Kazakhstan one,” he said.
The last updates to the book took place in 2003 for invertebrates and in 2008 for vertebrates.
Yashenko attributed the delay in updates to the book to the challenging economic conditions affecting science funding in the country.
“Between 2008 and 2010, funding for science in Kazakhstan was just 0.012% of GDP—a remarkably low figure. Later, the country began investing more in scientific development. Today, science funding stands at around 1% of GDP, a tenfold increase. This level of financing has made it possible to carry out more research,” he said in an interview with Kazinform new agency.
Andrey Gavrilov, head of the ornithology laboratory at the Institute of Zoology, said that the new book underwent major changes in the taxonomy of birds and other animals.
“I am talking about birds because I am an ornithologist myself. In the new edition of the Red Book, we proposed to include such large predators that feed on carrion. These are the vulture and the griffon vulture,” said Gavrilov.
