This is a list of Charadriiformes species by global population. While numbers are estimates, they have been made by the experts in their fields.

Charadriiformes Charadriiformes (, from ''Charadrius'', the type genus of family Charadriidae) is a diverse order of small to medium-large birds. It includes about 390 species and has members in all parts of the world. Most charadriiform birds live near water an ...

(Charadrius being Latin for ''"plover"'') is the taxonomic order to which the

wader 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...

gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

s, and

auk An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The word "auk" is derived from Icelandic ''álka'', from Old Norse ''alka'' (a ...

s belong.

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

has assessed 352 species; 181 (51% of total species) have had their population estimated. Bird taxonomy is currently in a state of flux, much wider in scope than the complications arising from the realization that birds are dinosaurs, and a full scientific consensus on the division of orders has yet to be settled upon. The Charadriiformes, for example, are grouped with the

Ciconiiformes Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family called Ciconiidae, and make up the order Ciconiiformes . Ciconiiformes previously included a number of other families, such as herons an ...

in the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy. In the interest of standardization this article, along with the rest of the Wikipedia Bird Population lists, is split along the taxonomic system used by BirdLife, which is both the Earth's largest partnership of conservation organizations, and the assessment team for birds on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

. This is not an endorsement of any one taxonomic system, and it may change in the future as new relationships are brought to light. A variety of methods are used for counting Charadriiformes. For example, the

piping plover The piping plover (''Charadrius melodus'') is a small sand-colored, sparrow-sized shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange-red legs, a black band across the forehead from e ...

is subject to the quinquennial ''Piping Plover International Census'', which is carried out in 9 Canadian provinces, 32 US states, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. In the 2006 survey, Saskatchewan alone had 159 volunteers scour 294 waterbodies. The

mountain plover The mountain plover (''Charadrius montanus'') is a medium-sized ground bird in the plover family (Charadriidae). It is misnamed, as it lives on level land. Unlike most plovers, it is usually not found near bodies of water or even on wet soil; i ...

has had its nests counted through the drive transect method. Once density has been calculated, the numbers are extrapolated over a bird's range. For more information on how these estimates were ascertained, see Wikipedia's articles on

population biology The term population biology has been used with different meanings. In 1971 Edward O. Wilson ''et al''. used the term in the sense of applying mathematical models to population genetics, community ecology, and population dynamics. Alan Hastings us ...

and

population ecology Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment, such as birth and death rates, and by immigration and emigration. The discipline is importa ...

. Species which can no longer be included in a list of this nature include the

Tahiti sandpiper The Tahiti sandpiper or Tahitian Sandpiper (''Prosobonia leucoptera'') is an extinct member of the large wader family Scolopacidae that was endemic to Tahiti in French Polynesia until its extinction sometime before 1819. It was discovered in 1 ...

, which was only recorded in 1777, and is suspected to have fallen prey to introduced egg-eating rats. The same fate awaited the

white-winged sandpiper The Tahiti sandpiper or Tahitian Sandpiper (''Prosobonia leucoptera'') is an extinct member of the large wader family Scolopacidae that was endemic to Tahiti in French Polynesia until its extinction sometime before 1819. It was discovered in 177 ...

. The

Canarian oystercatcher The Canary Islands oystercatcher, Canarian oystercatcher, or Canarian black oystercatcher (''Haematopus meadewaldoi''), Etymology: ''Haematopus'', Latinized Ancient Greek for "bloody-footed", from ''(h)aimato-'' (αίματό-), '"blood-" + ''-p ...

was reported vanished by 1940, believed to have been the result of overfishing of its sustenance. The feathers of the

great auk The great auk (''Pinguinus impennis'') is a species of flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus ''Pinguinus''. It is not closely related to the birds now known as penguins, wh ...

made excellent pillows, and

egg collectors An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

were so successful in their hobby that the last specimen in Britain was seen in 1840 on

Stac an Armin Stac an Armin ( gd, Stac an Àrmainn), based on the proper Scottish Gaelic spelling (formerly ''àrmuinn''), is a sea stack in the St Kilda archipelago. It is 196 metres (643 ft.) tall, qualifying it as a Marilyn. It is the highest sea st ...

, Scotland. This was beaten to death by three men believing it to be a witch. The continued existence of some species has yet to be confirmed either way. The

Javan lapwing The Javan lapwing (''Vanellus macropterus'') also known as Javanese lapwing and Javanese wattled lapwing is (or was) a wader in the lapwing family. This large, long-legged wader inhabited the marshes and river deltas of Java, and possibly Sumat ...

, for example, has not had a confirmed sighting since 1940, but unconfirmed reports continue to give hope that the last individual has yet to die. The last confirmed sightings of the

Eskimo curlew The Eskimo curlew (''Numenius borealis''), also known as northern curlew, is a species of curlew in the family Scolopacidae. It was one of the most numerous shorebirds in the tundra of western Arctic Canada and Alaska. Thousands of birds were th ...

were in the early 1980s, but scientists would rather not issue a former declaration of extinction until surveying of all potential breeding locations is completed. The

slender-billed curlew The slender-billed curlew (''Numenius tenuirostris'') is a bird in the wader family Scolopacidae. Isotope analysis suggests the majority of the former population bred in the Kazakh Steppe despite a record from the Siberian swamps, and was migr ...

(included in the list below) was considered "very common" in the early 1800s, rare by the early 1900s. The bird was recorded 103 times between 1980 and 1990, and 74 times between 1990 and 1999. The last confirmed recording of the slender-billed curlew was in April 2001. Critically Endangered means a species has experienced a decline of at least 80% in the past ten years or three generations, or is projected to decline that much over the same period of time. A species' continued existence does not necessarily mean the bird can be salvaged, as it may have already passed the

minimum viable population Minimum viable population (MVP) is a lower bound on the population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild. This term is commonly used in the fields of biology, ecology, and conservation biology. MVP refers to the smallest possible siz ...

Species by global population

References

{{Birds by population

Birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

Species by global population

See also

References