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Seward Peninsula and Yukon delta

Country/Territory USA
Area 0 km2
Altitude 0 - 0 m
Priority -
Habitat loss -
Knowledge -

General characteristics

This Secondary Area comprises the mountains (up to c.500 m in elevation) of the west-central Seaward peninsula (the Kougarok mountains) and along eastern Norton Sound, east of the Yukon delta (the southern Nulato hills), in westernmost Alaska, USA. The area holds the only two known breeding populations of the threatened Bristle-thighed Curlew Numenius tahitiensis (classified as Vulnerable), which total some 7,000 individuals (although it is possible that small numbers breed at least intermittently on the Chukotka peninsula in Russia: Konyukhov and McCaffery 1993). This species breeds in various habitats ranging from xeric alpine lichen meadows, through shrub-heath tundra and tussock tundra to wet sedge meadow, and winters throughout the central and southern Pacific (where it suffers predation by introduced animals), including in several oceanic island EBAs and Secondary Areas. The southern Nulato hills portion of this Secondary Area is protected within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, although throughout the breeding grounds N. tahitiensis is potentially threatened by hunting and by activities associated with gold-mining.

Restricted-range species


Species IUCN Red List category
Bristle-thighed Curlew (Numenius tahitiensis) NT

Important Bird & Biodiversity Areas (IBAs)
Country IBA Name IBA Book Code
USA Andreafsky Wilderness
USA Central Seward Peninsula

Threat and conservation


Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Endemic Bird Area factsheet: Seward Peninsula and Yukon delta. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/eba/factsheet/301 on 23/11/2024.