This species has declined dramatically both in distribution and abundance since the mid 1980s. The overall statewide distribution (based on BBA data) has decreased 65%, while abundance (based on BBS data) has declined by about 16% per year. The primary threats of agricultural conversion, fragmentation, and intensification are ongoing and expected to increase.

The statewide distribution of this species has contracted dramatically since the mid 1980s. All regions of the state showed steep declines in occupancy, and the maps conveyed the general impression that the statewide population was collapsing toward its core in Jefferson County. Populations in the lower St. Lawrence Valley and Southern Tier/Finger Lakes showed especially severe range contractions (McGowan and Corwin In Press). A former stronghold in the mid and upper Hudson and Mohawk Valleys (Bull 1974) also declined substantially. Breeding Bird Survey abundance data in New York between 1966 to 2003 also show variable patterns of decline in different regions of the state. Steep declines in the number of birds observed on BBS routes occurred in the St. Lawrence Valley, upper Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, while moderate declines occurred throughout most of western New York. Slight increases were found in the upper Mohawk Valley, at the east end of Lake Ontario in Jefferson County and the Black River Valley as well as extreme northwestern New York in Niagara, Orleans and Livingston Counties (Peterjohn and Sauer 1999). Despite Jefferson county being the core of the range in New York, Lazazzero and Norment (2005) only found Upland Sandpipers at about a dozen different locales, and they were the rarest grassland bird species in the County. Murphy (2003) showed that avian popualtion trends are strongly linked to changes in agricultural land use in the eastern U.S. Between 1985-2006 acres in permanent pasture in New York State declined by 23%, while hay acreage declined by 32%; corn acreage was nearly stable (USDA data). From 1993-2006 the western southern tier lost 20% of its farm acreage (New York Agricultural Statistics Annual Bulletin, 2006-2007 data), coinciding with the near elimination of the Upland Sandpiper as a breeding species in this region of the state (McGowan and Corwin In Press). During the same period, other regions of the state (St. Lawrence Valley, western

The distribution of this species in New York State has fluctuated dramatically over the past century. Comparison of distribution maps provided by Eaton (1910), and descriptions by Bull (1974), with those from both BBA atlases (Andrle and Carroll 1986; McGowan and Corwin In Press) show a pattern of population expansion from the early part of the 20th century up through the early 1980s and then a rapid range contraction back to approximately 1900 levels a century later. Breeding Bird Survey abundance data parallel this pattern, with the largest declines beginning in the mid 1980s (-15% per year) and continuing through the present (Peterjohn and Sauer 1999). Since hay acreage has been decreasing in New York since it's 1924 peak of about 5 million acres (USDA data), this suggests that a threshold effect may be taking place. By the mid 1980s farm acreage in hay was down by half (to 2.5 million acres) but Upland Sandpiper populations still appeared healthy. By 2007, that acreage was down by nearly half again (to 1.45 million acres) but by this time the population had crashed.