Numbers
How do you count an animal you cannot see?
Scientists count hidden animals with sound, photographs, DNA and models. Each method yields a range or a minimum, and that is why published figures differ.
Witness4 min read
Section
Numbers
What a count, a category, or a percentage actually measures.
Numbers
Extinct in the wild is a category with a door in it
Extinct in the Wild means a species survives only in human care or far outside its old range. The Red List rules also say what it takes to leave.
Witness4 min read
Numbers
What actually happens when a species goes extinct
On Guam the consequence was measured. When the baiji left the Yangtze, there was no baseline to measure against. The loss was the same size.
Witness4 min read
Numbers
The axolotl is not extinct in the wild
Extinct in the Wild is a category with a written test, and the axolotl does not meet it. What the Xochimilco counts counted, and what 2025 found.
Witness4 min read
Numbers
What the IUCN Red List is, and what it is not
An assessment of extinction risk, made by named groups under a published standard. It is not a law, and it does not decide what gets protected.
Witness4 min read
Numbers
What critically endangered actually means
The highest threatened category on the IUCN Red List, the five criteria an assessor applies, and why the label describes risk rather than rarity.
Witness3 min read
The app
Reading is where it starts.
Witness brings one species a week to your phone: a drawn plate, its true story with sources, and one honest action. These notes are the reading between them.