Bird conservation status and cultural values in Indigenous Mexican communities: towards a bioculturally informed conservation policy.

Background: We summarize comparative ethnoornithological data for ten Mexican Indigenous communities, an initial step towards a comprehensive archive of the avian diversity conserved within Mexico's Indigenous territories. We do so by counting highlighted species listed for bird conservation status on widely recognized "red lists" and their cultural value to build biocultural policies in Mexico for their conservation.

Methods: Indigenous bird names for each study site were determined to allow calculation of the "Scientific Species Recognition Ratio" (SSRR) for high cultural value birds obtained across communities.