There are currently few reliable sources of Canada-wide trend data for Arctic Tern in Canada, and improved monitoring is required. Much of the breeding range is remote, and in the southern portions it overlaps with the very similar Common Tern, raising identification challenges. Limited coverage by the Breeding Bird Survey suggests a large decrease in the southern portions of the Canadian range, but it is unclear whether this reflects a change in distribution or abundance. The few indicators available from the Arctic also suggest a declining population, including the Queens Channel region in the central High Arctic (Maftei et al., 2015), and the Belcher Islands (Gilchrist and Robertson, 1999). Inuit knowledge also suggests localized declines in parts of the Arctic (Henri et al., 2020). Regional coastal waterbird surveys in Atlantic Canada suggest fluctuating but overall stable numbers of Arctic Terns (Thomas et al., 2014, Ronconi et al., 2016). Future assessments of status may be improved when results from the Arctic Program for Regional and International Shorebird Monitoring (Arctic PRISM) become available.

No population goal is set for Arctic Tern because there are not enough data to estimate population trends. More monitoring is needed to enable development of a population goal for this species