Ardea herodias, Great blue heron

Ardea herodias   Linnaeus, 1758

Great blue heron
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Classification / Names Common names | Synonyms | CoL | ITIS | WoRMS

Aves | Ciconiiformes | Ardeidae

Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range Ecology

Others; freshwater; brackish.  Boreal

Distribution Countries | FAO areas | Ecosystems | Occurrences | Introductions

Northeast Pacific: Canada.

Length at first maturity / Size / Weight / Age

Maturity: Lm ?  range ? - ? cm Max length : 130 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 94965)

Short description Morphology

Eagle-sized wingspan; grey-blue plumage; long, dagger-like yellow-bill; red thighs (Ref. 94965).

Biology     Glossary (e.g. epibenthic)

Dependent on healthy, uncontaminated coastal wetlands and estuaries for feeding. Wades in shallow water whilst foraging. Forms colonies. Piscivorous. In Florida Bay, natural feeding supplemented by "panhandling" association with humans where they feed on bait fish from locals and developed begging behavior from residents. In Stanley Park Zoo in Vancouver, British Columbia, a large colony is able to persist in close proximity to human activities for over 78 years. In Florida Bay, population decline of 30-40% due to hurricanes were linked to nesting and foraging habitat degradation (Ref. 87784).

Life cycle and mating behavior Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae

Colonies in the Strait of Georgia have high rates of reproductive success (Ref. 95040).

Main reference References | Coordinator | Collaborators

Elliott, J.E., R.W. Butler, R.J. Norstrom and P.E. Whitehead 1989 Environmental contaminants and reproductive success of great blue herons Ardea herodias in British Columbia 1986-87. Environmental Pollution 59:91-114. (Ref. 95040)

IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435: Version 2025-1)

  Least Concern (LC) ; Date assessed: 13 August 2020

CITES status (Ref. 108899)

Not Evaluated

CMS (Ref. 116361)

Not Evaluated

Threat to humans

  Harmless

Human uses


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Ecology
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Length-weight rel.
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Spawning
Eggs
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Larvae
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Human Related
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References
References

Internet sources

BHL | BOLD Systems | CISTI | DiscoverLife | FAO(Publication : search) | Fishipedia | GenBank (genome, nucleotide) | GloBI | Gomexsi | Google Books | Google Scholar | Google | PubMed | Tree of Life | Wikipedia (Go, Search) | Zoological Record

Estimates based on models

Fishing Vulnerability (Ref. 71543): Very high vulnerability (78 of 100).

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