The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) was created in 1977 as a result of a recommendation of a federal-provincial wildlife conference. It arose from the need for a single, official, scientifically sound, national listing of wildlife species at risk. Its mandate is to determine the status, at the national level, of wildlife species, subspecies, varieties and geographically or genetically distinct populations suspected of being imperilled in Canada. In June 2003, the Species at Risk Act formally established COSEWIC as an advisory committee whose status designations are taken into consideration by the federal government when it places species on the legal list.

Composition
COSEWIC is an independent committee of scientific experts. In addition to the chair, COSEWIC members are experts tasked with representing the following groups:
- The Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge subcommittee
- The various Species Specialist subcommittees (amphibians and reptiles, arthropods, birds, freshwater fishes, marine fishes, marine mammals, molluscs, mosses and lichens, terrestrial mammals, vascular plants)
- All Canadian provinces and territories
- Various federal organizations (Canadian Wildlife Service, Parks Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Canadian Museum of Nature)
Some non-government science members and early career scientists are also COSWEIC members.
Status Determination
Several steps are involved when COSEWIC evaluates the status of species. The committee begins by commissioning status reports on species suspected of being in danger. Because these reports serve as a basis for status determination, they are reviewed by numerous experts to ensure their accuracy and completeness. Status reports provide an up-to-date description of the species' distribution, abundance, threats and population trends as well as trends and threats to their habitat. All COSEWIC members read these reports and meet twice annually, in April and November, to discuss the situation of each species.
Since its inception, COSEWIC has examined more than 1,000 plant and animal (including insect) species and concluded that approximately 860 of these are either extinct or at risk (extirpated, endangered, threatened or special concern). There are around 400 additional species still in need of assessment on COSEWIC’s candidate list. Given time and resource constraints, it will be many years before all these species are examined.
Categories of Risk
Quantitative assessment criteria based on those developed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List are used to assign official status. A species may be assigned to one of 7 categories.
Extinct
A wildlife species that no longer exists.
Extirpated
A wildlife species that no longer exists in the wild in Canada but exists elsewhere.
Endangered
A wildlife species facing imminent extirpation or extinction.
Threatened
A wildlife species that is likely to become endangered if nothing is done to reverse the factors leading to its extirpation or extinction.
Special Concern
A wildlife species that may become threatened or endangered because of a combination of biological characteristics and identified threats.
Data Deficient
A category that applies when the available information is insufficient to resolve a wildlife species' eligibility for assessment or to permit an assessment of the wildlife species' risk of extinction.
Not at Risk
A wildlife species that has been evaluated and found to be not at risk of extinction given the current circumstances.
See also Endangered Animals; Endangered Plants.