White-headed Woodpecker is too rare in Canada to be monitored by the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) or Christmas Bird Count (CBC), and its large territory size (up to several hundred hectares; Garrett et al., 1996) makes it difficult to survey effectively, therefore no data are available as a basis for estimating Canadian trends. At a continental scale, both the BBS (+44%) and CBC (+24%) show somewhat of an increase relative to 1970 levels, with the greatest growth occurring since around 2010, but this may not reflect changes in the very small Canadian population. The Species at Risk Act Recovery Strategy for White-headed Woodpecker reports that based on reported sightings, abundance of the Canadian population likely dropped by about half from the early 1970s to the 1990s (St. John, 1992). Although this is an imprecise estimate, it provides at least low confidence that the population has undergone a large decrease since 1970. 

The existing Recovery Strategy for White-headed Woodpecker has not defined a quantifiable goal for the Canadian population under the Species at Risk Act (Environment Canada, 2014), and there are insufficient data to establish trend-based objectives. This account will be updated if a more specific objective is established.