It occurs on coastal mudflats, estuaries, lagoons and salt-lakes at elevations up to 4,500 m. Breeding habitat is typified by the presence of suitable salinities and islands with extensive surrounding mudflats - conditions that do not occur each year. At Mar Chiquita, birds bred in only nine of the 26 years to 1999.

Phoenicopterus chilensis breeds in central Peru (apparently erratically, irregularly and in small numbers) (M. A. Plenge in litt. 1999), Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and perhaps erratically in Paraguay (at least one breeding record, and perhaps increasing in the Chaco, with 5,200 wintering in 2005, R. P. Clay in litt. 2000, Lesterhuis et al. 2008), with a few wintering in Uruguay and south-eastern Brazil, and vagrants in Ecuador and the Falkland Islands (Malvinas). In the mid-1970s, the population was estimated at 500,000 birds, but more recent figures of 100,000 in Argentina, up to 30,000 in Chile, and tens of thousands in Peru and Bolivia, suggested that no more than 200,000 individuals might persist; however, coordinated surveys in 2010 found 283,000 individuals and estimated the total population at 300,000 (Marconi et al. 2011).

Conservation Actions Underway
CITES Appendix II. CMS Appendix II.

Conservation Actions Proposed
Extend and continue simultaneous surveys during the breeding season to monitor population. Introduce measures to control intensive egg-harvesting.