Top 100 Countries by Threatened Mammal and Bird Species Count, 2026 Snapshot

What the ranking measures

The ranking measures the absolute number of threatened mammal and bird species recorded for each country or economy in comparable international data. The combined score is calculated as threatened mammals plus threatened birds. It is not normalized by land area, population, number of assessed species or total biodiversity richness.

A high count can signal a heavy conservation workload, but it can also reflect very high biodiversity, island endemism, large tropical habitats, wider species ranges or stronger assessment coverage. The ranking is therefore a workload and exposure indicator, not a simple grade for national environmental policy.

Top 10 countries and economies by threatened mammals and birds

The upper group is dominated by megadiverse tropical countries. Indonesia is a clear outlier because both its threatened mammal and threatened bird counts are high. Brazil, India, China, Madagascar, Colombia and Mexico form the next tier, with large species pools and major pressure on forests, wetlands, mountain systems or endemic island fauna.

Ecuador also records 135 in the full table and sits immediately after Australia. Sequential row ranks are used for a compact Top 100 display.

Methodology

The ranking uses two World Bank World Development Indicators: EN.MAM.THRD.NO for threatened mammal species and EN.BIR.THRD.NO for threatened bird species. The combined count is calculated as threatened mammals plus threatened birds for each country or economy.

The 2026 page label is a publication snapshot, not a new 2026 measurement year. The WDI indicator pages show a 2017–2022 data range, and the country values used here are the latest available observations, generally 2022. Values are whole-species counts and are not adjusted for population, land area, total assessed species, endemic species share or national biodiversity richness.

The indicator is intentionally narrow. It excludes fish, reptiles, amphibians, plants, fungi, insects and other invertebrates. Bird values can include species within breeding or wintering ranges, so cross-country comparison is affected by species ranges, assessment coverage, monitoring intensity and ecological geography. A high score should be read as a larger conservation workload, not as a standalone environmental performance grade.

Full ranking: Top 100 countries and economies by threatened mammals and birds

The table can be searched, filtered by region and reordered without changing the underlying WDI-based combined count. All rows are present in the HTML source; JavaScript only changes the visible order or subset.

Source basis: World Bank WDI indicators EN.MAM.THRD.NO and EN.BIR.THRD.NO, derived from the IUCN Red List and UNEP-WCMC. The table uses latest available country observations, generally 2022. Some WDI entries are economies or territories, so the page uses “countries and economies” where precision matters.

Key patterns in the Top 100

What it means for readers

The ranking is most useful as a conservation workload indicator. It highlights where large numbers of threatened mammal and bird species overlap with habitat fragmentation, forest conversion, hunting, invasive species, wetland loss, island vulnerability or limited ecological range.

Policymakers can use this type of ranking to prioritize protected-area quality, habitat corridors, anti-poaching enforcement, invasive-species control and long-term monitoring. Donors and researchers can use it to identify countries where species recovery programmes and field surveys may have high biodiversity value. Readers should avoid interpreting the count as a complete measure of environmental performance because it does not account for recovery progress, enforcement quality, conservation spending or total species richness.

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