Eskimo curlew, credit: Jim, the Photographer CC BY 2.0

Extirpated Provincially, Endangered Nationally

Description

• Medium-sized, brownish shorebird; upper parts are sooty black to greyish-brown; underparts cinnamon; primary wing feathers are dark and unbarred; faint stripe above the eye
• Long, slender, slightly down-curved bill

Range

• May be extinct (no fully substantiated records since 1963, when a single bird was collected in Barbados)
• Passed through Ontario on migration between Northwest Territories and South America along the Hudson Bay and upper James Bay coasts

Threats

• Overhunting (primary cause of historic decline)
• Habitat loss and fragmentation

Protection

• Provincially protected under the Endangered Species Act, 2007
• Federally protected under the Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994
• Federally protected under the Species at Risk Act, 2002

Fact

Once one of the most numerous birds in Canada, the Eskimo curlew may now be extinct.