Harlequin Duck and Purple Sandpiper Survey Data Collection
The Eastern Population of the Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus), breeds inland on rivers from northern New Brunswick to Nunavut, and winters in coastal areas from Newfoundland and Labrador to Maryland. In 2001, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) downlisted the Harlequin Duck from “Endangered” to “Special Concern,” and in 2013 the species was re-assessed by COSEWIC and its status remained “Special Concern” (COSEWIC 2013). Harlequin Ducks tend to congregate in large groups in marine areas when moulting and wintering, making them susceptible to catastrophic events such as oil spills. These sea ducks are long-lived species with delayed breeding, which makes their populations slow to recover.
The Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima) is an arctic-breeding shorebird that winters in Atlantic Canada. While never assessed by COSEWIC, it has been upgraded from a low to high priority species in the Canadian Shorebird Conservation Plan (Hope et al. 2019). The reliability on trends for this species is low due to limited monitoring data, which highlights the need for increased monitoring. Purple Sandpipers and Harlequin Ducks occupy similar marine habitats during winter, allowing both species to be surveyed at the same time.
This dataset represents a compilation of dedicated Harlequin Duck (HADU) and Purple Sandpiper (PUSA) surveys in Atlantic Canada. Surveys were conducted by land, boat, helicopter, and plane, and range from September 1966 to 2024. Most surveys were led by the Canadian Wildlife Service, with collaboration from the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. As future HADU or PUSA surveys are performed, they will be added to this database. Survey conditions are included in a separate file from the observations, and the observations are provided as both a CSV file and geospatial points layer. A geospatial polylines layer is included to measure survey coverage in Atlantic Canada. To request additional survey data for these species, please contact the Canadian Wildlife Service.
COSEWIC. 2013. COSEWIC assessment and status report on the Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus Eastern population in Canada. Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Ottawa. ix + 38 pp.
Hope, D.D, C. Pekarik, M.C. Drever, P.A. Smith, C. Gratto-Trevor, J. Paquet, Y. Aubry, G. Donaldson, C. Friis, K. Gurney, J. Rausch, A.E. McKellar & B. Andres. 2019. Shorebirds of conservation concern in Canada – 2019. Wader Study 126(2): 88–100.
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Additional Info
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| Last Updated | October 20, 2025, 02:36 (UTC) |
| Created | October 20, 2025, 02:36 (UTC) |
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Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
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Title
Title for the Dataset.
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Harlequin Duck and Purple Sandpiper Survey Data Collection |
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Description
A description of the dataset.
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The Eastern Population of the Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus), breeds inland on rivers from northern New Brunswick to Nunavut, and winters in coastal areas from Newfoundland and Labrador to Maryland. In 2001, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) downlisted the Harlequin Duck from “Endangered” to “Special Concern,” and in 2013 the species was re-assessed by COSEWIC and its status remained “Special Concern” (COSEWIC 2013). Harlequin Ducks tend to congregate in large groups in marine areas when moulting and wintering, making them susceptible to catastrophic events such as oil spills. These sea ducks are long-lived species with delayed breeding, which makes their populations slow to recover. The Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima) is an arctic-breeding shorebird that winters in Atlantic Canada. While never assessed by COSEWIC, it has been upgraded from a low to high priority species in the Canadian Shorebird Conservation Plan (Hope et al. 2019). The reliability on trends for this species is low due to limited monitoring data, which highlights the need for increased monitoring. Purple Sandpipers and Harlequin Ducks occupy similar marine habitats during winter, allowing both species to be surveyed at the same time. This dataset represents a compilation of dedicated Harlequin Duck (HADU) and Purple Sandpiper (PUSA) surveys in Atlantic Canada. Surveys were conducted by land, boat, helicopter, and plane, and range from September 1966 to 2024. Most surveys were led by the Canadian Wildlife Service, with collaboration from the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. As future HADU or PUSA surveys are performed, they will be added to this database. Survey conditions are included in a separate file from the observations, and the observations are provided as both a CSV file and geospatial points layer. A geospatial polylines layer is included to measure survey coverage in Atlantic Canada. To request additional survey data for these species, please contact the Canadian Wildlife Service. COSEWIC. 2013. COSEWIC assessment and status report on the Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus Eastern population in Canada. Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Ottawa. ix + 38 pp. Hope, D.D, C. Pekarik, M.C. Drever, P.A. Smith, C. Gratto-Trevor, J. Paquet, Y. Aubry, G. Donaldson, C. Friis, K. Gurney, J. Rausch, A.E. McKellar & B. Andres. 2019. Shorebirds of conservation concern in Canada – 2019. Wader Study 126(2): 88–100. |
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Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
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Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
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Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
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Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
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Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
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2024-12-31 |
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Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
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Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
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GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
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Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
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License
License used to access the dataset.
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Open Government Licence - Canada |
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Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
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Location
Location of the dataset.
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https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/5e2587cf-303b-410e-b549-e7d42a8646c3 |
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Data Service
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Owner
Owner of the dataset.
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Environment and Climate Change Canada | Environnement et Changement climatique Canada |
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Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
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Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
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Publisher
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Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
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[email protected] |
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Author
Author of the dataset.
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Author Email
Email of the author.
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Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
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Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
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Language
Language(s) of the dataset
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Link to dataset description
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Persistent Identifier
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Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
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Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
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Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
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Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
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Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
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Version
Version of the datatset
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None |
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Source
Source of the dataset.
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None |
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Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
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Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
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Other versions
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Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
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Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
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Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
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GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
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GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
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Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
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Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
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The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
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Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
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Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
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Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
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Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
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Number of entities
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Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
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Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
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Metric for data quality
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