Archived 2012-2013 topics: São Francisco Sparrow (Arremon franciscanus): downlist to Least Concern?

This discussion was first published  as part of the 2010 Red List update, but remains open for comment to enable reassessment in 2013. São Francisco Sparrow Arremon franciscanus has a patchy distribution over a wide area of central Bahia and north Minas Gerais, Brazil. It seems to be uncommon to locally fairly common in suitable habitat. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List because it was thought to have a restricted range that approaches the threshold for listing as Vulnerable (<20,000 km2) combined with severely fragmented habitat or occurrence at approximately ten or fewer locations and a continuing decline in its habitat, population size or number of locations/sub-populations. However, this species has been mapped by Natureserve/BirdLife International as having an estimated Extent of Occurrence (EOO) of 56,100 km2, hence it does not appear to approach the IUCN thresholds and appears to warrant downlisting to Least Concern. However, if the species has experienced declines over the past three generations (11 years, BirdLife International unpubl. data) approaching 30% it may warrant listing as Near Threatened under the A criterion (population declines). Given its relatively large range size it seems unlikely that this species will have a population approaching 10,000 mature individuals so it would not qualify as threatened or Near Threatened on population size under the C criterion. Comments on the population trends of this species and its proposed downlisting are welcomed. (This discussion was started as part of the 2010 Red List update)