Status of Birds in Canada 2019

Environment and Climate Change Canada is committed to working with partners, both within Canada and internationally, to help maintain the diversity and abundance of migratory birds in Canada. Understanding the current status of bird populations is a critical tool for their conservation, especially when combined with information on how these populations have changed over the past years. By synthesizing results stemming from Canada’s multiple bird population monitoring programs, this website identifies all species’ current population status, describes the most pressing conservation issues for each species, and provides a mechanism to track progress in how well we monitor birds in Canada. We also provide long-term population goals for most species, both as a target for conservation and as a means to measure the success of ongoing conservation actions.

The website includes accounts for all species of birds that regularly breed or occur in Canada. We based assessments on the best available information up to 2016. We assessed the change in the national population status for each species relative to ~1970 (when many of the major bird surveys began).

Environment and Climate Change Canada would like to acknowledge the contribution of the thousands of volunteers who generously donate their time and expertise to bird monitoring programs throughout North America, as well as the many professional biologists and technicians working for various government agencies and non-government organizations in Canada and the United States who helped to establish, design, run, and analyze the results of these surveys.

For more details on the status of waterfowl species, visit the Canadian Wildlife Service’s Population Status of Migratory Game Birds in Canada report.

For multi-species syntheses of results on the state of Canada’s birds and further discussion on their conservation issues and actions, see the State of Canada’s Birds 2019 report. For syntheses on the state of birds in North America, see the State of North America’s Birds 2016 report.

Suggested citation: Environment and Climate Change Canada. 2019. The Status of Birds in Canada Website, Data-version 2019. Environment and Climate Change Canada, Gatineau, Quebec, K1A 0H3