Arctic Tern

About the Arctic Tern
Arctic Tern

The Arctic Tern is a sea bird that breeds in colonies in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America (as far south as Brittany in France and Massachussetts in the United States). It is a migratory bird, spending summers in its northern breeding grounds, and the other half of the year summers in Antarctica. This is the longest migration route by any known animal!

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Details & Statistics

Conservation

The Arctic Tern is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2012 by BirdLife International. This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.

International Names

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