• Summary
• Text account
• Data table and detailed info
• Range map
• Resources

Taxonomic note
Tyto tenebricosa and T. multipunctata (del Hoyo and Collar 2014) were previously lumped as T. tenebricosa following Norman et al. (2002) and Christidis and Boles (2008), before which they had been split following Sibley and Monroe (1990, 1993) and Christidis and Boles (1994).

Taxonomic source(s)
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N.J., Christie, D.A., Elliott, A. and Fishpool, L.D.C. 2014. HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Non-passerines. Lynx Edicions BirdLife International, Barcelona, Spain and Cambridge, UK.

Red List criteria met

Critically Endangered	Endangered	Vulnerable
-	-	-

Red List history

Year	Category	Criteria
2024	Least Concern
2016	Least Concern
2014	Least Concern
2012	Not Recognised
2008	Not Recognised
2006	Not Recognised
2004	Least Concern
2000	Lower Risk/Least Concern
1994	Lower Risk/Least Concern
1988	Lower Risk/Least Concern

Migratory status	not a migrant	Forest dependency	medium
Land-mass type		Average mass	-

	Estimate	Data quality
Extent of Occurrence (breeding/resident)	5,600,000 km2
Severely fragmented?	no	-

	Estimate	Data quality	Derivation	Year of estimate
Population size	unknown	-	-	-
Population trend	decreasing	-	suspected	-
Generation length	5.55 years	-	-	-

Population justification: The global population size has not been quantified, but the species is described as probably rare (Konig et al. 1999). This species is considered to have a medium dependency on forest habitat, and tree cover is estimated to have declined by 13.5% within its mapped range over the past three generations (Global Forest Watch 2022, using Hansen et al. [2013] data and methods disclosed therein). Therefore, as a precautionary measure, it is tentatively suspected that this loss of cover may have led to a decline of between 1-19% in the species' population size over the same time frame.

Trend justification:   .

Country/Territory	Presence	Origin	Resident	Breeding visitor	Non-breeding visitor	Passage migrant
Australia	extant	native		yes
Indonesia	extant	native		yes
Papua New Guinea	extant	native		yes

Country/Territory	IBA Name

Habitat (level 1)	Habitat (level 2)	Importance	Occurrence
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Dry	suitable	resident
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Lowland	suitable	resident
Forest	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Montane	suitable	resident
Grassland	Subtropical/Tropical High Altitude	suitable	resident
Shrubland	Subtropical/Tropical High Altitude	suitable	resident
Altitude	0 - 4000 m	Occasional altitudinal limits

Threat (level 1)	Threat (level 2)	Impact and Stresses
Climate change & severe weather	Habitat shifting & alteration	Timing		Scope		Severity		Impact
		Future		Whole (>90%)		Unknown		Unknown
		Stresses Ecosystem degradation

Purpose	Scale
Pets/display animals, horticulture	international

---

Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2025) Species factsheet: Greater Sooty-owl Tyto tenebricosa. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/greater-sooty-owl-tyto-tenebricosa on 06/01/2025.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2025) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 06/01/2025.