Save Black-crowned Night Heron

Though most New Yorkers likely have never noticed this bird before, the Black-crowned Night Heron prefers it that way. In classic New York fashion, this grumpy-looking wading bird keeps late hours and sticks to its familiar haunts – the kind of New Yorker who knows exactly where to eat at midnight but won’t tell anyone about the spot. 

Every night at dusk the Black-crowned Night Heron (BCNH) leaves its harbor island, spreading out across the City to hunt – standing motionless at the water's edge until a fish or a crab delivers itself to this patient nocturnal hunter. By morning it has returned to one of a handful of small wild islands where it nests alongside nine other wading bird species, including Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets.

For most of the 40+ years NYC Bird Alliance has been tracking harbor wading birds, BCNH has been the most abundant species, but often the least noticed by New Yorkers. That is about to change.

For over four decades, NYC Bird Alliance scientists and more than 100 trained volunteers have counted every wading bird nest on every island in New York–New Jersey Harbor, the longest continuous wading bird dataset in the Northeast. What it shows is hard to look away from: Black-crowned Night Heron populations have fallen 55% in 22 years, dragging the broader harbor wading bird community down 27% with it – a rate that exceeds average North American bird declines.

Read the full peer-reviewed paper in Conservation Science and Practice.

The Black-crowned Night Heron is the harbor's canary in the coal mine. As a top predator that eats across nearly every habitat the harbor has to offer, its health is a reading on the whole system: the water New Yorkers swim and fish in, the marshes that buffer our shoreline from storms, the interconnected web of life that makes New York Harbor one of the great urban estuaries in the world.

The stakes of losing this colony extend across the region.  Given NY–NJ Harbor is their largest nesting spot in the Northeast, the Black-crowned Night Heron population disappearing here could put the species' future across New York State and the Atlantic region in jeopardy.

List the Black-crowned Night Heron as threatened or endangered in New York State. The species is already listed as endangered in Maine and Pennsylvania and threatened in New Jersey. New York, where the Northeast's largest population persists, has no listing.

We call on state and local agencies to reduce predation and human disturbance on the harbor islands that can support colonies through more active management. 

Black-crowned Night Herons forage across nearly every habitat the harbor offers – marshes, mudflats, creek edges, and urban waterways. Restoring these sites support not just the night heron but the broader climate resilience and biodiversity that depends on a healthy harbor.

We call on NYS to commit to sustained, funded long-term research: we know the Black-crowned Night Heron is declining, but the specific drivers – whether predation, contaminants, disturbance, or some combination – are not yet fully understood. Research is essential to ensuring that conservation interventions are targeted, effective, and measurable.

Sign our petition calling on NYC Parks and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to fund dedicated research into the causes of this bird's decline and strengthen protections for the harbor islands where it nests. 

Your story is part of our advocacy. Tell us why the Black-crowned Night Heron matters to you through the form below, by emailing bcnh@nycbirdalliance.org, or on social media using #nycnightheron and tagging @nycbirdalliance. The more New Yorkers who speak up, the stronger our case to the decision-makers who can help protect this bird. 

Saving this species will take sustained public pressure on the decision-makers who can protect it. Sign up for NYC Bird Alliance's Avian Advocates list and we will let you know when the moment to act arrives. 

The Black-crowned Night Heron's survival depends on sustained science, strong advocacy, and a public that refuses to look away. Your support makes all three possible.