About Live Species

Live Species keeps the latest published count for each animal on its wall. Each count comes with the kind of number it is, when it was counted, who counted it and what is pushing it up or down.

Who is on it

The wall holds wild animals with 1,000 or fewer left in the wild. It also holds animals that were that few in the past and have since been counted back up past 1,000.

Some animals are shown apart: those gone from the wild, those with no current count, and those counted another way.

For most animals, nobody knows how many there are.

Where the numbers come from

Each figure is read at its counting body's own publication. It stays as published until the next count.

The human population is the only number on the site that moves.

Live Species is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or speaking for any counting body, government agency, conservation group or the IUCN. Their names appear only to credit their work.

How figures are checked is explained on How Live Species counts.

Photographs, credits and the letter

Photographs on the site are real photographs. Each is in the public domain, under a Creative Commons public domain dedication, or under a CC BY or CC BY-SA licence, and each is credited with its licence. No image on the site is made by AI.

Credits for every photo and every counting body are on the Credits page.

A monthly letter starts when Live Species launches: once a month, what changed on Live Species, one animal up close and the humans figure for contrast. The sign-up opens at launch, and until then the site collects no addresses.