Data Zone
Justification of Red List category
This species was found in the eastern Canary Islands, but is now Extinct due to overharvesting of its invertebrate prey. It was last collected in 1913, and locally reported to be absent by the 1940s.
Population justification
No extant population remains.
Haematopus meadewaldoi was endemic to Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and their offshore islets in the Canary Islands, Spain (Collar et al. 1994). It was last collected in 1913 and locally reported to have become extinct by the 1940s (Collar and Stuart, 1985). It is now considered extinct because extensive surveys in the mid-1980s failed to find any evidence of the species's survival, despite four convincing reports (two from Tenerife and two from Senegal) between 1968 and 1981 (Collar et al. 1994).
It inhabited the coastal zone where it foraged for invertebrates; its ecology was likely to have been typical of the genus.
Its decline was probably a result of overharvesting of intertidal invertebrates and disturbance by people (Hockey 1987), although predation by rats and cats has also been implicated (Collar and Stuart 1985).
Text account compilers
Khwaja, N., Brooks, T., Mahood, S., McGonigle, K.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Canarian Oystercatcher Haematopus meadewaldoi. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/canarian-oystercatcher-haematopus-meadewaldoi on 23/12/2024.
Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2024) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/search on 23/12/2024.