Canada geese in city park |
With declines in Canada goose nest counts in parts of rural eastern Washington, and continuing problems with abundant geese in urban parks and golf courses, it almost seems like the big birds prefer our cities and towns.
A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Canada goose marking effort that started last year may help answer that and other questions about the species.
This summer WDFW biologists and volunteers captured, banded, and collared 800 more Canada geese in several rural and urban locations, including Wenatchee, Chelan, Tri-Cities, Yakima and Spokane.
WDFW Waterfowl Specialist Mikal Moore says waterfowl hunters can report the leg bands when geese are harvested, and the highly visible collars can be reported by any observer. The information will help biologists compare migration, reproduction, and hunter-harvest of urban and rural-dwelling birds. Recapturing the marked geese at the same locations over five years will provide wildlife managers with information on annual survival, a critical measure of population stability.
“This study will allow us to compare harvest rates between local and migratory geese,” Moore said, “and harvest rates on various other Canada goose subspecies. Until we initiated this study last year, we hadn’t examined many locally breeding Canada geese in eastern Washington for at least 15 years, and we had never looked at the urban goose population as a whole. This will help us learn if urban birds are year-round residents or migratory.”
Urban goose numbers can rise dramatically when the birds do not migrate, or are not exposed to predators, hunting, and other factors that normally limit populations. Urban areas often provide new attractive habitat for geese, she explained, and direct feeding activities contribute to goose population growth.
Last year’s first goose marking effort – which involved 422 geese in several similar locations – brought about 41 band returns and numerous collar reports. Some of the band returns came from as far away as northern Alberta and Saskatchewan, although most were local.
Reports of band or collar codes, along with locations and dates, should be made to U.S. Geological Services Bird banding Laboratory at 1-800-327-BAND or online at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/call800.htm |
