Population trends in this arctic-breeding species are not well known. Canada is home to approximately 1,000 breeding colonies spread in small groups or even single pairs across the Arctic, making monitoring difficult (Petersen et al. 2015). Intermittent surveys of Glaucous Gulls have been carried out at a handful of breeding locations in Nunavut. Glaucous Gulls decreased in abundance by approximately 50% between 1985 and 1997 in the Belcher Islands, and between 1980 to 2008 in Digges Sound (Gilchrist and Robertson 1999, Gaston et al. 2009). On Coats Island, one colony showed little change, while the other showed a large decrease between 1979 and 1995 (Petersen et al. 2015). An 80% decline was observed at a colony on Prince Leopold Island from 1975 to 2008 (Petersen et al. 2015). Interestingly, Inuit hunters around Resolute Bay, Grise Fiord, Iqaluit, and Arctic Bay, Nunavut, have reported that local populations have increased over the past few decades (Petersen et al. 2015). Decreases appear to have taken place at High Arctic colonies as well (Gaston et al. 2009), but only a small fraction of the breeding population is monitored. Though population abundance has increased in developed areas of Alaska (Noel at al. 2006), likely due to garbage dumps, population trends in the Western Canadian Arctic remain unclear. The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) provides some information with respect to numbers observed during winter, though sample sizes are low, and they represent an unknown percentage of Canadian birds. CBC results suggest increases around the Great Lakes and in parts of the Maritimes, but the overall trend, both nationally and continentally, is that of a large decline (Meehan et al. 2018). Overall, the population of Glaucous Gulls in Canada has most likely decreased moderately in abundance since about 1970, though the reliability of this assessment is considered low, since it is possible that shifting distributions may account for some of the small-scale changes observed (Petersen et al. 2015). Due to the paucity of data relative to 1970, and the uncertainty of the current status of this species' population, a national population goal has not yet been determined.
