This spring, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) added the Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa haemastica) to its growing list of “wildlife species in danger of disappearing from Canada.” The committee convenes twice a year to designate species at risk of extinction with a status of Special Concern, Threatened, or Endangered. COSEWIC’s assessments are presented to the Canadian government, the public, and directly to the Minister for Environment and Climate Change Canada, and are used to decide which species may qualify for legal protection under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA). Alongside other threatened taxa from mammals to mosses, the Hudsonian Godwit was the only bird added in May 2019, but it joined seven other shorebird species already on the COSEWIC list.
The U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan (2016) places Hudsonian Godwit in the category of high concern, and it is also a focal species of the Pacific Americas Shorebird Conservation Strategy (Senner et al. 2016). The global population of Hudsonian Godwits is estimated to be 70,000 individuals (Andres et al. 2012). The annual aerial census of Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa) and Hudsonian Godwit in Tierra del Fuego – one of the species’ primary non-breeding sites – has documented godwit numbers between about 24,000 and 40,000 each January since 2011. Although a remarkable percentage of the global population, these totals are lower than numbers recorded in the early 2000s, suggesting a steady decrease in the population since 2002.
A Sanderling (Calidris alba) stands by to snatch a snack while a Hudsonian Godwit forages for Horseshoe Crab eggs at the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge WHSRN Site in Massachusetts.Photo: Brad Winn.
What led to the Hudsonian Godwit’s Threatened status, and what efforts are underway to recover populations of this incredible shorebird?
Hudsonian Godwits are one of the longest-distance migrants of any shorebird, flying an astonishing 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) from the coasts of southern Patagonia to their breeding grounds in the Arctic. Their breeding range is restricted to small areas along the Hudson Bay coast and the Mackenzie River Delta, and a few sites in remote western Alaska. Warming temperatures have already transformed this breeding habitat by increasing the presence of trees. This can force arctic breeding shorebirds to move further to the north, but for the Mackenzie River Delta breeding population, nesting grounds already abut the Beaufort Sea, leaving the birds nowhere else to go. And when they depart the Arctic to fly south, warming ocean temperatures could be changing wind and weather patterns in ways that may disrupt the cues godwits rely on to survive their transoceanic flights.
Male (left) and female (right) Hudsonian Godwits on breeding grounds in Yukon National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. Photos: Brad Winn.
Completing such epic migrations is not only a test of endurance, but exposes Hudsonian Godwits to myriad threats along the way. Many only stop to rest once on their journeys from the Arctic all the way to southernmost South America, in rice fields and other ephemerally flooded wetlands in the prairies of the Central Flyway. Many of the wetland complexes in the Great Plains that godwits count on as stopover areas are drying up due to climate change. Other principal threats identified in the Hudsonian Godwit Conservation Plan (Senner 2007) include habitat loss and degradation (such as commercial development, agriculture and aquaculture, and chemical and petroleum refineries), environmental contamination (from oil spills or toxic run-off from agricultural lands), and human disturbance (through resource use, infrastructure construction, and in some areas, hunting).
During the non-breeding season, Hudsonian Godwits congregate at three main sites in southern South America: at Bahía Lomas, Chile and Bahía San Sebastián, Argentina, both in Tierra del Fuego, and on Chiloé Island and the nearby wetlands of Maullín, on the central coast of mainland Chile.
Concentrating in such dense flocks on the non-breeding grounds can also make the population vulnerable, but the good news is that nearly all of the key sites where Hudsonian Godwit spend the boreal winter are already part of the WHSRN network.
Hudsonian Godwit in flight at the Quilo wetlands on Chiloé Island, Chile. Photo: Brad Winn.
WHSRN partners are working hard at these sites to study and protect habitat for the species. In January 2018, representatives from 11 different organizations in the Chiloé Island archipelago came together for a Habitats for Shorebirds workshop with Manomet’s Shorebird Recovery Program and the WHSRN Executive Office. The Chiloé Shorebird Conservation Plan has guided a coalition of local, national, and international partners in the strategic conservation of critical habitats for godwits and other shorebirds, with active participation from local communities, businesses and entrepreneurs, landowners, and decision-makers.
In November 2018, two Habitats for Shorebirds workshops were led in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, bringing local actors together to discuss strategies for reducing habitat loss and human disturbance at the most crucial non-breeding sites for the Hudsonian Godwits. The focal WHSRN sites of the workshop – Costa Atlántica de Tierra del Fuego and Estuario del Río Gallegos in Argentina and Bahía Lomas in Chile – together support almost 40% of the species’ global population. In early 2019, Bahía Lomas celebrated a conservation victory after being officially declared a National Nature Sanctuary by the Chilean government. A product of more than 15 years of collaborative research, this new legal protected status will help Bahía Lomas complete and implement an updated management plan to reduce the threat of possible oil spills and continue working to safeguard this critically important expanse of mudflats.
In response to COSEWIC’s listing of the Hudsonian Godwit as threatened, Canada is a perfect place to turn for continued conservation action to protect this species. Using available monitoring data, the WHSRN Executive Office has identified a total of 16 sites in Canada that are of significant importance to Hudsonian Godwit, each qualifying as potential WHSRN sites. Along the coast of the Moose Cree First Nation, for example, 10% of the global Hudsonian Godwit population stops to rest and feed at Pei lay sheesh kow, a candidate WHSRN site. Other areas surrounding James Bay, such as the estuary of the Albany River and nearby coastline, are estimated to support about 20% of the population. Hudsonian Godwit is already one of the species closest to having its full network of key sites conserved by WHSRN. These important sites across Canada present an opportunity to fill some of the gaps, and potentially help turn the tide for this marathon migrant.
Cover Photo: Flock of Hudsonian Godwit on Chiloé Island. Photo: Monica Iglecia.
