Hudsonian Godwits stage at several key sites in Canada during fall migration; e.g., Quill Lakes, Saskatchewan, for the western breeders (Alexander and Gratto-Trevor 1997), and James Bay for the eastern breeders (Walker et al. 2011). From these staging areas, the majority of individuals are then believed to undertake non-stop flights to their South American wintering grounds (Morrison 1984). Consequently, migration monitoring in Canada and the United States misses a large and unknown fraction of the population. Nevertheless, results from these surveys are the only long-term data source currently available. They suggest a large decrease in population size relative to about 1970, but are considered to have low reliability because they monitor only a fraction of the population, and the precision of the estimates is poor. Aerial and ground surveys in the wintering areas (especially Chiloe Island and Tierra Del Fuego) suggest no change in abundance since the 1980s (Andres et al. 2009; Morrison, unpublished data). Future assessments of status will be improved when results from the Arctic Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (Arctic PRISM) become available. The Hudsonian Godwit is currently below the lowest acceptable levels of the national population goal for this species (see graph below).
Additional information on: Analyses of Shorebird Migration Monitoring Data
