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.
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