Around half of all listed species in the Netherlands are under threat of extinction, according to figures from environmental data compendium CLO, quoted by the Volkskrant on International Endangered Species Day.
The Netherlands is home to 47,000 species of animals, plants and fungi. Among the casualties are vertebrates such as the slender-billed curlew, which recently became extinct, while the wolf is making a controversial comeback in the Netherlands after an absence of 150 years.
Mammals, birds and fish make up just 2% of the variety of species compared with 20,000 types of insect, over 10,000 types of fungi, 3,000 kinds of microalgae and 2,500 types of vascular plants and arachnids.
Just 8,000 species, or 17%, have been listed, of which slightly over half have been put on the red list of endangered species, varying in degree from “sensitive” to “critically endangered”.
Some 1,000 species lack documentation about their status, and 465 species have disappeared altogether, including one in five butterflies and 14% of all bee species.
The first red lists were introduced in the 1990s and showed an increase in the number of threatened species until 2005, when a fall in pollution and more greenery heralded a slight recovery.
The reintroduction of species, such as the otter, which became extinct in 1989, also helped. However, since 2025, the number of endangered species has been increasing again.
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