At 25%, cod fish have a lower threat level than many would expect. In Sweden, for example, cod is often highlighted as a species in crisis (see e.g. the 2026 edition of the Swedish Red List). The explanation is that the game cards are based on the IUCN’s global Red List, where the cod fish group is assessed as a whole, and where the majority of the studied species (8 in total) are not classified as endangered. However, the populations of the commercially important cod species have declined dramatically, due to overfishing and increasingly warmer waters.

Insects are in crisis, but the crisis is primarily about drastically declining populations, not species going extinct on a large scale. That is why 19% may feel surprisingly low. At the same time, 19% is likely an underestimate of the true situation. Of nearly 1 million known insect species, IUCN has only assessed around 13,000 – and among the unstudied species, a greater proportion are likely threatened. A key reason for population decline is the loss of habitats. One example: since the late 1920s, the meadow area in Sweden has decreased from over 500,000 hectares to around 12,000 hectares, which has hit bees and other pollinators hard. A similar development has taken place in many other countries.

Stony corals have a lower threat level than the media narrative often suggests (37% of known species are threatened), but the situation for coral reef ecosystems is nonetheless deeply serious. Half of the world’s coral populations are estimated to have disappeared over the past 150 years. The greatest threat is rising ocean temperatures, which cause coral bleaching – a condition in which corals lose the algae they live in symbiosis with and starve to death. Ocean acidification, which occurs as the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide, further impairs corals’ ability to form their calcium skeletons.