MiCO Species
MiCO’s creation and development stemmed from the acute lack of information on use of oceanic areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). Therefore, our focus is on the numerous marine turtles, marine mammals, seabirds, and fish species that utilize ABNJ. These include 900 species, many of which are considered threatened or near-threatened by the IUCN.
The list of species to be evaluated by MiCO was assembled from several sources: Lascelles et al. (2014) (829), Fowler (2014) (94), fish species managed under a Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO) (40), sea birds of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act as recommended by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (171), and migratory seabird species as recommended by BirdLife International (280) for a total of 900 unique species (440 fish, 102 marine mammal, 351 sea bird, and 7 sea turtle species). Additional species may be considered in the future.
References:
Fowler, S. (2014). THE CONSERVATION STATUS OF MIGRATORY SHARKS 1 UNEP/CMS Secretariat, Bonn, Germany. 30 pages.
Lascelles, B., Notarbartolo Di Sciara, G., Agardy, T., Cuttelod, A., Eckert, S., Glowka, L., … Tetley, M. J. (2014). Migratory marine species: their status, threats and conservation management needs. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 24(S2), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.2512