Endangered or rare wild taxa are declared protected or strictly protected taxa by the Ministry of Culture by ordinance on the proposal of the State Institute for Nature Protection, based on the assessment of the threat of individual taxa and obligations arising from international treaties to which the Republic of Croatia is a party and which are in force. Native domesticated taxa that are endangered are determined and declared protected native domesticated taxa by the minister upon the proposal of the State Institute for Nature Protection.
ENDANGERED PROPERTIES
Endangered species of plants, animals and fungi are assessed according to the standardized criteria prescribed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). On the basis of such assessment, the so-called red lists and red books. They represent one of the basic professional foundations in nature protection and show us what and how much a particular taxon is endangered, what measures can be taken and how the risks of extinction of a particular taxon can be reduced or removed. The main purpose of the red lists is to focus the attention of state institutions, non-governmental organizations and the general public on taking concrete measures to protect these species with established priorities and urgency of actions, so that in the future as few species as possible are included in the red list.
IUCN threat categories
| Category Group | Category of endangered species / subspecies |
| Extinct (EX) | extinct in nature (EW) – there is no longer a living specimen in nature regionally extinct (RE) – extinct in Croatia |
| Threatened | critically endangered (CR) – there is an extremely high risk of extinction endangered (EN) – there is a very high risk of extinction vulnerable (VU) – there is a high risk of extinction |
| They are not threatened with extinction | near threatened (NT) – not facing extinction, but could be soon least concern (LC) – they were evaluated according to the IUNC criteria and it was determined that they do not belong to any of the mentioned categories insufficiently known (DD) – there is not enough necessary data to assess the risk of extinction (population status and distribution) |
Number of plant and animal taxa processed in the Red List according to groups and IUCN categories:
| Group | EX | RE | CR | EN | VU | NT | LC | DD | Total |
| Vascular flora | 1 | 10 | 90 | 62 | 71 | 186 | 0 | 340 | 760 |
| Mushrooms | 0 | 0 | 54 | 76 | 121 | 35 | 0 | 63 | 349 |
| Lichens | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 32 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 56 |
| Mammals | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 21 | 1 | 8 | 41 |
| Birds – gn / negn | 0 | 13/2 | 17/13 | 23/10 | 14/2 | 36/20 | 34/9 | 10/1 | 147/47 (178) |
| Reptiles | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 18 |
| Amphibia | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 9 |
| Freshwater fish | 0 | 6 | 15 | 20 | 29 | 11 | 2 | 8 | 91 |
| Sea fish | 0 | 0 | 5 | 11 | 10 | 19 | 32 | 47 | 124 |
| Butterflies | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 0 | 17 | 38 |
| Dragonfly | 0 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 12 | 0 | 6 | 36 |
| Corals | 0 | 0 | 8 | 20 | 37 | 7 | 13 | 31 | 116 |
| Runs | 0 | 0 | 38 | 35 | 63 | 76 | 143 | 40 | 395 |
| Coastal workers | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 11 | 4 | 26 | 35 | 82 |
(Source DZZP)
PROTECTED HOMES
Wild taxa that are endangered or rare are protected as strictly protected taxa or protected taxa.
A strictly protected taxon can be defined as:
- a wild taxon threatened with extinction in the territory of the Republic of Croatia;
- narrowly distributed endemic;
- wild taxon protected on the basis of an international treaty.
A protected taxon can be defined as:
- a native wild taxon that is sensitive or rare and is not threatened with extinction in the territory of the Republic of Croatia;
- a wild taxon that is not endangered, but due to its appearance it can easily be confused with an endangered wild taxon;
- wild taxon based on international agreement.
Strictly protected species are: wild species threatened with extinction in the territory of the Republic of Croatia; narrowly distributed endemic; wild species protected on the basis of an international treaty to which the Republic of Croatia is a party and which is in force, confirmed by the Republic of Croatia.
A protected taxon is: a native taxon that is sensitive or rare, and is not threatened with extinction in the territory of the Republic of Croatia; a wild taxon that is not endangered, but due to its appearance it is easily possible to replace it with an endangered wild taxon, and a wild taxon protected on the basis of an international treaty to which the Republic of Croatia is a party and which is in force.
The State Institute for Nature Protection, as the central institution for carrying out professional nature protection work, prepared a proposal for strictly protected and protected taxa in cooperation with scientists competent for individual groups. Based on this, the Ordinance on the declaration of wild taxa as protected and strictly protected (“Official Gazette” No. 99/09) was adopted.
| Group | Strictly protected | |
| Plants | 809 | |
| Mushrooms | 314 | |
| Mammals | 50 | |
| Birds – gn / negn | 326 | |
| Reptiles | 37 | |
| Amphibia | 15 | |
| Freshwater fish | 68 | |
| Sea fish | 5 | |
| Butterflies | 26 | |
| Dragonfly | 32 | |
| TOTAL | 1682 |
(Source DZZP)


