|
Cooperative
Management Of Wrangel Island Snow Geese
Don Kraege, WDFW Waterfowl Section Manager
Washington is
the winter home to several unique populations of waterfowl
with international management significance. One of these
populations, Wrangel Island lesser snow geese, breeds on
Wrangel Island off the northeast coast of Siberia, and most
spend the winter on the Skagit Delta near Mount Vernon and
the Fraser Delta near Vancouver BC. A smaller segment of
the population continues down the flyway to wintering areas
in California’s Central Valley.
Due to a combination
of factors involving poor production, over harvest, and
pressures on the breeding grounds, the population declined
from over 150,000 birds to less than 60,000 in the 1970’s.
The population is greatly affected by spring and summer
weather conditions and predators on the Arctic breeding
grounds, and in some years no goslings are produced on the
breeding colony. During the last seven years, production
has been good, and the population has been increasing toward
the management objective of 120,000. Recent surveys of snow
geese indicate that the breeding population is currently
at 110,000 and the Skagit-Fraser flock is approximately
70,000 birds. Over the past twenty years, a larger percentage
of the population has been wintering in the Skagit-Fraser
area.
The population
is managed separately from other North American lesser snow
goose populations, some of which have become overabundant
and are impacting Arctic breeding areas. Unlike these eastern
populations, the Wrangel Island population has not shown the
same threat of degrading its Arctic breeding grounds, and
the population has been given protection on spring migration
areas during expanded snow goose hunting seasons in the Central
Flyway.
Cooperative
management programs involving WDFW, other Pacific Flyway State
agencies, Canadian Wildlife Service, and the Wrangel Island
Nature Reserve, are detailed in a joint plan developed by
the Pacific Flyway Council
The population
was one of the key species identified in the Pacific Coast
Joint Venture’s First Step habitat acquisition and enhancement
program. In 1994, a 255-acre parcel on Fir Island near Conway
was secured through federal and state grants to WDFW, to provide
critical upland feeding habitat adjacent to the estuary. A
total of 500 ac are managed as the Fir Island / Hayton Game
Reserve, which has become a popular viewing area and serves
to maintain hunting opportunities on adjacent lands.
|
