The Canadian population of Burrowing Owl is monitored moderately well by the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), which samples an intermediate proportion of the breeding range and has medium precision. It shows an increase in the 1970s, but then a sharp decline through the 1990s, and a slower but ongoing decline ever since. Targeted surveys have provided more detail (COSEWIC, 2006), but because the species has become so rare, all but two monitoring projects have been discontinued (COSEWIC, 2017). These surveys indicate that populations in Alberta and Saskatchewan, which make up the majority of the national population, both decreased by about 90% in the 1990s, and by another 45% and 76% respectively between 2005 and 2015 (COSEWIC, 2017). The populations in British Columbia and Manitoba were considered to be extirpated around 1980 and 1990 respectively, but a small number of individuals now occur in these provinces thanks to captive breeding and reintroduction programs (see the British Columbia Breeding Bird Atlas (Chutter, 2015) and Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas (Artuso et al., 2018) distribution maps). Overall, the Canadian population is estimated to have declined from about 800–1600 birds in 2006 (COSEWIC, 2006) to about 270 birds in 2017 (COSEWIC, 2017).

The population goal for Burrowing Owl, which is defined in its Recovery Strategy under the Species at Risk Act, is to maintain a minimum of 3000 nesting pairs (Environment Canada, 2012). Recent population estimates indicate that the Burrowing Owl population is far below its goal.