All species / Grus canadensis

Grus canadensis

Sandhill Crane

No photograph is shown for this species. A licensed photograph is stored, matched through a name iNaturalist treats as a synonym of this one, and no subject expert has confirmed the synonymy. See the gallery for the full accounting.

Red List, global: LC; Least Concern, 2021
First CITES listing: I; Appendix I, 1975
CITES trade records: 1,148; 1984–2023 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 4; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: none; NAMMCO reports a subset of marine mammals
Seizure records: 0; reported taxon matches

One of 43: each square a species, coloured by its latest global Red List category, this one ringed. Sandhill Crane is among the birds.

In summary derived

Grus canadensis, Sandhill Crane, is placed in family Gruidae, order Gruiformes, class Aves. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix II, dated 1975. The corpus records 1 dated listing row in total.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Least Concern, published 2021. It carries 5 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 3 on scales that were superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them.

The corpus holds 1,148 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 1984 to 2023, reported across 4 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is bodies: 983 records across 2 unit dimensions, of which 982 are measured in specimens. The corpus holds no NAMMCO catch records for it. No seizure record in the corpus is attributed to it.

Composed from 16 corpus fields, by template, with no model

species.class
species.family
species.order_name
species_catch.catch_total
species_iucn.is_global
species_iucn.status
species_iucn.year_published
species_listing.appendix
species_listing.listing_date
species_seizure.*
species_trade.dimension
species_trade.first_year
species_trade.last_year
species_trade.record_count
species_trade.reporter_type
species_trade.term

Each sentence is generated from the columns above and nothing else. The same corpus produces the same text every time. Where a field is absent the sentence is omitted rather than hedged.

Overview curated

Taxonomy entered by a named curator and versioned in the repository.

Class: Aves
Order: Gruiformes
Family: Gruidae
First CITES listing: 1975
Global Red List status: LCLeast Concern, assessed 2021

Content withheld pending expert review

8 narrative sections for this species were machine-drafted and are not shown. No subject expert has reviewed and signed them.

Trade derived

CITES Trade Database v2025.1, extracted 13 June 2025.

There is no single trade total

Quantities are reported per unit dimension, per traded term, and per reporting side. These are not additive: kilograms and individual animals have no common unit, a live animal is not a carving, and an importer report and an exporter report are two accounts of one shipment rather than two shipments.

Figures below are exporter-reported.

count in specimens: 1,139 records, 99%
volume in L: 4 records, <1%
packaging in containers: 3 records, <1%
mass in kg: 2 records, <1%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 342 records in 1999. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 1,439 specimens in 1998. Quantity of bodies, the term with most records (982), in specimens, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

1,139 of 1,148 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

bodies982

live113

specimens15

trophies13

feathers5

claws3

unspecified2

skulls2

Top 8 of 11. Bars count trade records per term, not specimens, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in specimens.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
bodies	4,027 specimens	962	1991–2023	W
live	162 specimens	102	1991–2022	C
bodies	83 specimens	18	1984–1998	not recorded
specimens	423 specimens	14	1991–2022	W
trophies	67 specimens	13	1996–2021	W
live	24 specimens	7	1988–1993	not recorded
feathers	168 specimens	5	1996–2014	W
live	16 specimens	4	2000–2020	F
claws	96 specimens	3	2011–2014	W
bodies	6 specimens	2	1994–1998	C
skulls	3 specimens	2	1996	W
skins	2 specimens	2	2004–2010	W

Showing the 12 term and source combinations with the most records, of 17.

3 smaller units: L (4 records), containers (3 records), kg (2 records)

volume measured in L

4 of 1,148 records carry a quantity in L.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	0.05 L	3	2009–2016	W
specimens	0.1 L	1	1998	F

packaging measured in containers

3 of 1,148 records carry a quantity in containers.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	4 containers	2	1993	C
specimens	3 containers	1	1999	W

mass measured in kg

2 of 1,148 records carry a quantity in kg.

meat1

bodies1

Bars count trade records per term, not kg, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in kg.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
meat	2 kg	1	2005	W
bodies	2 kg	1	2001	W

CITES listings curated

CoP decisions, cross-checked against the appendix reported on trade records.

Date	Appendix	Annotation	Status
1975-07-01	II	Sandhill crane - Species in Appendix II; subspecies A. c. nesiotes and A. c. pulla in Appendix I. Previously listed as Grus canadensis	first listing

Convention on Migratory Species

Listed under CMS: Appendix II.

IUCN Red List derived

Assessment history. Scope is always stated: a regional assessment is not the species status.

This history crosses a criteria revision

Categories from before 2001 come from earlier Red List systems. Three kinds are kept apart.

LR/lc and LR/nt are the modern LC and NT under their old names, so they are plotted as those categories and the line runs through them: nothing changed but the wording.

LR/cd was discontinued with no successor. This project reads it as Near Threatened, following a published crosswalk between the old and new Red List systems, and the chart marks such a point hollow and names both codes, because placing a category is not the same as finding it published.

The pre-1994 codes (E, V, K, T and the rest) are not on the risk order at all, so they sit below the axis and the line breaks across them. A category change across a criteria revision is not a change in extinction risk, and none of these is scored as a movement: the ledger refuses every one of them at gate 3.

published global assessment

Vertical position is the IUCN risk order, not a measured quantity: the gaps between categories are equal on the page and not in nature. The dashed step crosses the 2001 revision of the Red List criteria: the category codes on either side match, the criteria behind them do not, so the step is shown and not measured.

Category movement since listing: not scored. Gate 3: the baseline category LR/lc comes from a pre-2001 Red List system and is not on the modern ordinal scale. How this is defined and why some species are not scored

Year	Category	Meaning	Scope	Status
2021	LC	Least Concern	Global	current for this scope
2016	LC	Least Concern	Global
2012	LC	Least Concern	Global
2009	LC	Least Concern	Global
2008	LC	Least Concern	Global
2004	LC	Least Concern	Global
2000	LR/lc	Lower Risk, least concern (1994 system)	Global
1994	LR/lc	Lower Risk, least concern (1994 system)	Global
1988	LR/lc	Lower Risk, least concern (1994 system)	Global

Reported catch derived

NAMMCO catch exports dated 11 June 2025. A reported zero is stored as zero, distinct from an unknown.

No NAMMCO catch records for this species. NAMMCO reports on a subset of marine mammals, so an absence here is expected for most species and does not mean no catch occurred.

Illegal trade seizures derived

Seizure records whose reported taxon resolves to this species.

What the seizure source records

No seizure in the compilation names this species. Matching is on the taxon the source reported, case aside. Across the whole compilation, 225 of 919 rows match one of the 43 species and the rest name other taxa.

Quantities are unitless. The source gives no date or place, so the table shows the product and the reported taxon.

No seizure records attributed to this species.

References withheld

Machine-proposed bindings. Shown only where an expert has signed the profile and the binding is live.

No references are recorded for this species: none is shown, and none was machine-proposed for review.

Timeline curated

Curated events. Those with no corroborating table in this database are marked.

Date	Event	Type	Corroboration
2021	IUCN Red List Assessment (2021)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2016	IUCN Red List Assessment (2016)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2012	IUCN Red List Assessment (2012)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2009	IUCN Red List Assessment (2009)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2008	IUCN Red List Assessment (2008)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2004	IUCN Red List Assessment (2004)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2000	IUCN Red List Assessment (2000)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1994	IUCN Red List Assessment (1994)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1988	IUCN Red List Assessment (1988)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1975-07-01	Listed in CITES Appendix II	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`