Status

The Northern Pintail has a large range, estimated at 10 million square kilometres (0.4-3.8 million sq mi), and a population estimated at 6.1–7.7 million individuals. It is therefore not believed to meet the IUCN Red List threshold criterion of a population decline of more than 30% in ten years or three generations, and is evaluated as Least Concern.[1]

Feeding maleIn the Palaearctic, breeding populations are declining in much of the range, including its stronghold in Russia, and are otherwise stable or fluctuating.[35]

Pintails in North America at least have been badly affected by avian diseases, with the breeding population falling from more than 10 million in 1957 to 3.5 million by 1964. Although the species has recovered from that low point, the breeding population in 1999 was 30% below the long-term average, despite years of major efforts focused on restoring the species. In 1997, an estimated 1.5 million water birds, the majority being Northern Pintails, died from avian botulism during two outbreaks in Canada and Utah.[23]

The Northern Pintail is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies,[36] but it has no special status under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants.[10]