LibGuides: ENG 100: College Reading and Learning Strategies: Endangered Animal Project

Where to Start

The following websites and encyclopedias are great places to start searching for information about your endangered species.

Step 1: Find your species on the IUCN Red List and/or the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Endangered Species List.

Step 2: Use these two lists to find basic information about your species' behaviors and status.

Step 3: Use other Reference Sources to find any basic information that was not included in the two lists.

Step 4: Use journal articles to find more up to date studies on particular aspects of your species' lives, i.e. mating behavior, conservation efforts, communication, etc.

Search Suggestions

Find the animal’s scientific name; many researchers may refer to it by that instead of its common name.
“Re-search” means to search again, so you will probably have to do multiple searches across multiple resources.
When searching for journal or magazine articles, combine your species' name with and aspect of your project like habitat or diet; you can also search for a reason it might be endangered: farming, industrialization, climate change, etc.

IUCN Red List of Endangered Species
Great background information about thousands of species. Able to find information about habitat, diet, level of threat, reasons for threat, and more.

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From the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Endangered Species List
Specific to animals in the U.S. and North America. Can search by species, state, or county. Some background information on the species, but the real treasure is the linked documents from the Federal Register about projects related to the species.

Reference Source vs. Journal Articles

Reference sources are summaries of facts, definitions, histories, statistics, and other types of information on large subject areas, organized for quick look up.

They are sometimes called “background” sources.
You use these to gain a basic understanding of a concept or issue before moving on to more advanced sources of information.
Information can be dated because these are published once and not always upated.

Journal articles are the published findings of academic studies.

Many are peer-reviewed, which is an additional check of credibility before the article is published.
They are very specific and typically only report on one study, so you may need to find several to show what research is being done on you specific species.
Journals are published multiple times a year, so there is plenty of opportunity to find more recent studies on your species.
The library page “Understanding Journals” gives more information about what journals are and are not.

Understanding Journals: Peer-Reviewed, Scholarly, & Popular
by Liz Svoboda Last Updated Oct 7, 2022 3933 views this year

Reference Sources

Search for information in the following sources if you did not find enough back ground information on the IUCN Red List or the Fish and Wildlife Service website.

Animal Diversity Web
Animal Diversity Web (ADW) is an online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology at the University of Michigan. Thousands of species accounts about individual animal species. These may include text, pictures of living animals, photographs and movies of specimens, and/or recordings of sounds.

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NOTE: University students write the text of these accounts and their accuracy is not guaranteed.

Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia: Extinction
Find information about what is leading groups of animals to extinction.
"Written specifically for students and general researchers, the set features approximately 80 articles outlining major extinctions and related scientific areas, as well as providing a species-by-species account of extinction. Entries are written by experts in the field and are peer-reviewed by an editorial board of academics specializing in zoology, paleontology and environmental science."
The Encyclopedia of Mammals (3rd ed.)
Revised and updated to reflect the most recent developments in modern zoology. It covers the behavior, diet, distribution, and evolution of every known living mammal in the world in clear, accessible language.
Encyclopedia of Underwater Life
Coverage of the fish and aquatic invertebrates that inhabit our rivers, lakes, and oceans. It describes in detail the anatomy, behavior, habitat, breeding, and conservation status of species.
New Encyclopedia of Birds
Entries prepared by a team of renowned biologists and conservationists give a systematic account of every family, covering their form and function, distribution, diet, social behavior, and breeding biology. Special attention is given to environmental and conservation issues.
The New Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians (2nd ed.)
An excellent and authoritative overview of reptiles and amphibian that manages to combine scientific research with easy to read essays.
The New Encyclopedia of Insects and their Allies (3rd ed.)
An authoritative overview of all the world’s terrestrial arthropods written by the world’s leading experts in entomology, the accounts are accessible to both scientific and general readers.

Journal Articles

Search Suggestions

Find the animal’s scientific name; many researchers may refer to it by that instead of its common name.
“Re-search” means to search again, so you will probably have to do multiple searches across multiple resources.
Journal articles often report original research and will focus on one experiment or field study.
When searching for journal or magazine articles, combine your species' name with and aspect of your project like habitat or diet; you can also search for a reason it might be endangered: farming, industrialization, climate change, etc.
If you saw an article in the refence list on the IUCN Red List or the ADW, use PrimoVE to search for it by its title, we might have access to it.

Gale OneFile: Environmental Studies and Policy This link opens in a new window
Almost 200 journals providing robust coverage of environmental issues and policies, including diverse perspectives from the scientific community, governmental policy makers, as well as corporate interests.
Environmental & Ecology Databases on EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window
Collection of three major environmental collections.

Includes these collections:

Environment Complete: Coverage in applicable areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, environmental law, public policy, social impacts, urban planning, and more.

GreenFILE: Articles, books and government documents on global warming, environmental protection and renewable energy.

Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide: Covers 1935 & earlier to the present, and is the world's largest index to literature on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Most of the records in this database are from Wildlife Review Abstracts, formerly Wildlife Review, which until 1996 was a print publication produced by the U.S. National Biological Service. Wildlife Review Abstracts offers a global perspective and is the most comprehensive resource on wildlife information. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, ecotourism, zoology, taxonomy and much more.
PrimoVE This link opens in a new window
This is the tool behind Search All on the library's homepage. Use it to search the Thompson Library's books, journal articles, streaming media, and more. If you saw an article in the refence list on the IUCN Red List or the ADW, use PrimoVE to search for it by its title, we might have access to it.