Kennerley gave the following figures for the population of black-faced spoonbills: 50 birds in Hong Kong, 62 in Vietnam, five in South Korea, six in Japan, about 15 in China as a whole (wetlands and Poyang Lake) and 150 birds at the Tsengwen River estuary in Taiwan, giving a total world population of only some 280.
根據甘乃利的統計，黑面琵鷺的數量為：香港五十隻、越南六十二隻、南韓五隻、日本六隻，整個中國（濕地與鄱陽湖）約十五隻，加上台灣曾文溪口的約一百五十隻，全世界的黑面琵鷺就僅剩約二百八十多隻了。