The sandhill crane is BLUE-listed because of the lack of data on breeding populations in B.C., and habitat loss and degradation for breeding populations in the Fraser Lowlands and Okanagan valley. The sandhill crane roosts and feeds in open wetland areas such as bogs, swamps, marshes, estuaries, fens and dry upland areas such as grasslands and agricultural fields. It nests in secluded freshwater wetlands that are surrounded by forest cover.
Nests are large heaps of vegetation in water, surrounded by a screen of emergent vegetation.
Young leave the nest and forage with their parents around the perimeter of the wetland, primarily in sedge meadows. When threatened, adult and young sandhill cranes will often run into heavy forest cover. In B.C., the sandhill crane is a solitary nester with breeding pairs sparsely distributed across available habitat. The sandhill crane breeds throughout most of the central interior, the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Fort Nelson Lowland, and in low elevation bogs, marshes and muskeg wetlands up to 1220 m elevation. It is a local breeder in the East Kootenay Trench, along the mainland coast, in the Okanagan and Thompson Basin, and at Pitt Meadows and Burns Bog in the Fraser Lowland.