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BC Conservation Data Centre: Conservation Status Report

Calidris minutilla
Least Sandpiper

 
Scientific Name: Calidris minutilla
English Name: Least Sandpiper
   
Provincial Status Summary
Status: S4B,S5M
Date Status Assigned: February 19, 2025
Date Last Reviewed: February 19, 2025
Reasons: A widespread but patchily distributed breeder in far northwestern mountains and plateaus of B.C. with a small and declining population on Haida Gwaii. It is an abundant migrant across the province and is rare in winter in some years.
 
Range
Range Extent: G = 200,000-2,500,000 square km
Range Extent Estimate (km2): 220,094
Range Extent Comments: Breeding: Known breeding areas are within the St. Elias Mountains, Tuya Mountains (https://ebird.org/checklist/S146147178), Spatsizi Plateau, Delkatla Inlet, and south to near Anahim Lake (Campbell et al. 1990b, Di Corrado 2015g), but they likely breed in the intervening mountain swamps in northwestern B.C. The eastern-most records of likely breeding birds are from the Omineca Mountains (Di Corrado 2015g). The breeding population is apparently sparse and widely scattered across the northwest portion of the province. The breeding range extent is based on Di Corrado (2015g), Campbell et al. (1990b), and breeding records in eBird (accessed March 2024) and is 220,094 square km.

Migration: Least Sandpipers are found over most of the province during migration, in a variety of habitats (Campbell et al. 1990b). Based on records in Campbell et al. (1990b) and eBird (accessed March 2024) the range extent of migratory birds is 1,184,000 square km.

Wintering: A very small number overwinter in British Columbia in some years, with records from Haida Gwaii, the Tofino area, the east side of Vancouver Island and, most often, the Fraser River delta. There is some evidence from Christmas Bird Counts that this may be happening more frequently and in increasing numbers but those trends are based on very small numbers. The vast majority of this species winter in the southern United States south to central South America (Nebel and Cooper 2020).
Area of Occupancy (km2): U = Unknown
 
Occurrences & Population
Number of Occurrences: CD = 21 - 300
Comments: There were 30 atlas squares with confirmed, probable, or possible breeding (Di Corrado 2015g). It is likely that the true number of occurrences is greater owing to the remoteness of breeding habitat.
Number of Occurrences with Good Viability / Ecological Integrity: Rank Factor not assessed
Number of Occurrences Appropriately Protected & Managed: BC = 1 - 12
Comments: Breeding: Protected in Spatsizi, Tatshenshini-Alsek and Tuya Mountains Provincial Parks. Delkatla Inlet on Haida Gwaii population declining and threatened by salt water inundation after the dike was breached for restoration as a municipal wildlife reserve. Likely other parks in the north have breeding birds

Migration: Dozens or more. Many migratory stop over sites regularly used by this species are in protected areas, for example, Boundary Bay, Sidney Spit in Gulf Islands National Park Reserve and Long Beach National Park Reserve.
Population Size: C = 250 - 1,000 individuals
Comments: Breeding: The population size is unknown, but is likely between 250 and 1,000 individuals. Andres et al. (2012) and Morrison et al. (2006) estimated about 700,000 Least Sandpipers in North America. An earlier estimate of the Canadian breeding population was 50,000 to 100,000 individuals (Morrison et al. 1994). Least Sandpiper breeding sites are sparsely distributed in northwestern British Columbia. The Delkatla Inlet population on Haida Gwaii was formerly about 100 pairs (Di Corrado 2015g), but that has declined significantly.

Migratory: Population size is unknown, but there are likely between 10,000 and 100,000 birds. Common to locally abundant migrant along the coast and in the southern interior and an uncommon to common migrant in the northern interior (Campbell et al. 1990b). Fall migration starts so early in the summer it is difficult to determine if birds are northbound or southbound in June (Siddle 2010). Some large concentrations during migration include 4,440 at Tofino at the Wah-nah-jus Hilth-hoo-is Mudflats in the fall of 2011 (Drever et al. 2016), 5,000 seen on 6 Sept 1970 at Salmon Arm (Campbell et al. 1990b), and 3,600 at Tofino-Arakun 15 Aug 1989 (https://ebird.org/checklist/S105751988).

Wintering: Very small numbers overwinter some years, with the largest number reported on Christmas Bird Counts in British Columbia being 14 in the winter of 2022/2023 (National Audubon Society nd).
 
Threats (to population, occurrences, or area affected)
Degree of Threat: U = Unknown
Comments: The Delkatla population declined after reverting the Inlet to a salt marsh (Nebel and Cooper 2020). Overall habitat is unthreatened although the impacts of climate change on this species are not well understood (Meltofte et al. 2007). There are some major staging areas where the species concentrates on migration in large numbers (Nebel and Cooper 2020) and any threat to these habitats will have serious consequences.
 
Trend (in population, range, area occupied, and/or condition of occurrences)
Short-Term Trend: U = Unknown
Comments: Generation time for this species has been calculate to be 3.404 years (Bird et al. 2020) so the three generation time for a short term trend is 10.212 years.
Breeding: Trend is unknown, there is no monitoring of the breeding population in British Columbia and observations are too few to determine a trend.

Migratory: Relatively stable. The North America wide decline estimate for the most recent three generations (Smith et al. 2023) is a decline of about 5% per year. At the site that has been monitored most intensely in British Columbia, Sidney Spit in the Gulf Islands, Hope et al. (2021) found an increasing trend in Least Sandpiper numbers since the 2000s.
Long-Term Trend: U = Unknown
Comments: Breeding: unknown, there is no monitoring of the breeding population in British Columbia

Migratory: Stable. The North America-wide decline estimate for the most recent three generations (Smith et al. 2023) is a decline of about 5% per year, and the previous three generations was considered stable. However, at the site that has been monitored most intensely in British Columbia, Hope et al (2021) looked at migrating numbers of Western and Least Sandpipers at Sidney Spit in the Gulf Islands over a 29-year period and did not find a strong trend in that period. Numbers of Canadian breeders based on PRISM surveys appear stable in the period 1980-2019 (SOCB 2024).
 
Other Factors
Intrinsic Vulnerability: C=Not intrinsically vulnerable
Environmental Specificity: Rank Factor not assessed
Other Rank Considerations:
 
Information Gaps
Research Needs:
Inventory Needs:
 
Stewardship
Protection:
Management:
 
Version
Author: Fraser, D.F. (2024)
Date: March 07, 2024
 
References
(SOCB) State of Canada?s Birds. Environment and Climate Change Canada and Birds Canada. 2024. The State of Canada?s Birds ? Species Accounts. Data accessed from NatureCounts, Birds Canada
Andres, B.A., P.A. Smith, R.I.G. Morrison, C.L. Gratto-Trevor, S.C. Brown, and C.A. Friis. 2012. Population estimates of North American shorebirds, 2012. Wader Study Group Bull. 119(3): 178?194.
Bird, J., R. Martin, H.R. Akçakaya, et al. 2020. Generation lengths of the world?s birds and their implications for extinction risk. Conservation Biology 34:1252?1261.
Campbell, R.W., N.K. Dawe, I. McTaggart-Cowan, et al. 1990b. The Birds of British Columbia Vol. 2: Nonpasserines: Diurnal Birds of Prey through Woodpeckers. Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, BC.
Di Corrado, C. 2015g. Least Sandpiper in Davidson, P.J.A., R.J. Cannings, A.R. Couturier, D. Lepage, and C.M. Di Corrado (eds.). The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of British Columbia, 2008-2012. Bird Studies Canada. Delta, B.C.
Drever, M.C., B. A. Beasley, Y. Zharikov, et al. 2016. Monitoring Migrating Shorebirds at the Tofino Mudflats in British Columbia, Canada: is Disturbance a Concern?, Waterbirds 39(2): 125-135.
eBird. ND. eBird: an online database of bird distribution and abundance [web application]. eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, N.Y.
Hope, D.D., A .Drake, D. Shervill, et al. 2021. Correlates of Annual Stopover Counts in Two Species of Arctic-Breeding Shorebirds: Roles of Local, Breeding, and Climatic Drivers. Waterbirds, 44(1): 13-29.
Meltofte, H., T. Piersma, H. Boyd, et al. 2007. Effects of climate variation on the breeding ecology of Arctic shorebirds - Meddelelser om Gronland Bioscience 59. Copenhagen, Danish Polar Center, 2007. 48 pp.
Morrison, R.I.G. 1994. Shorebird population status and trends in Canada. Bird Trends 3:3-5. Can. Wildl. Serv., Delta, BC.
Morrison, R.I.G., B.J. McCaffery, R.E. Gill et al. 2006. Population estimates of North American shorebirds, 2006. Wader Study Group Bulletin 111: 67?85.
National Audubon Society. No Date. The Christmas Bird Count Historical Results [Online]. Available http://www.christmasbirdcount.org [your access date]
Nebel, S. and J. M. Cooper. 2020. Least Sandpiper (Calidris minutilla), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Siddle, C. 2010. Birds of North Peace River (Fort St. John and Vicinity), British Columbia, 1975-1999 Part 1 (Introduction and Nonpasserines: waterfowl through woodpeckers). Wildlife Afield 7(1):12-123.
Smith, P.A., A.C. Smith, B. Andres, et al. 2023. Accelerating declines of North America?s shorebirds signal the need for urgent conservation action. Ornithological Applications 125(2), duad003
 

Please visit the website Conservation Status Ranks for information on how the CDC determines conservation status ranks. For global conservation status reports and ranks, please visit the NatureServe website http://www.natureserve.org/.

Suggested Citation:

B.C. Conservation Data Centre. 2024. Conservation Status Report: Calidris minutilla. B.C. Minist. of Environment. Available: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ (accessed Jun 4, 2026).