From: jessie@iastate.edu (Brent Danielson)
Subject: Re: Where's the Geese?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: 14 Dec 92 07:33:19 CST
Originator: hunting@osnome.che.wisc.edu

In article <1992Dec11.075311.14049@doug.cae.wisc.edu> CBARNES@tamvm1.tamu.edu (Chris Barnes) writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.073226.14837@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
>   dans@Solbourne.COM (Dan Scott) writes:
> 
>>	It seems like the last front brought in a few more geese. On Sunday
>>I saw several hundred in flock after flock headed back into Loveland, Co.
>>But the numbers of geese are extremely low this year. Has anyone in Texas,
>>Idaho or elsewhere on  our flyway seen the normal migration?
> 
> 
>I haven't had a chance to go goose hunting (finding a place/lease and
>all that ya' know), but from the reports that I've been hearing about
>the rice fields around Houston, the main body of geese have not arrived
>yet.  This is highly unusual as they are normally about 75% here by now.
> 
>On the good side of this - it also probably  means that the goose huntin
>later in the year will be better than normal, as hunting pressure has
>been light and the geese shouldn't become decoy shy yet.  At least that'
>my hope!

The weekend before Thanksgiving the number of snows and blues at
Desoto NWR was estimated at 520k with another 500k spread out along
the Missouri from Desoto (on the IA-NE border) down to Kansas.  That's
roughly 1/2 of the flyway's total.  I am not aware of the current
flock size.

Hunting is tough this year though.  Average production from La Peruse
Bay on Hudson Bay, was estimated at 0.24 offspring per adult.  This
was the best reproduction of any of the major breeding areas.  Most
were a complete bust due to late snow.  My partner was getting counts
of 10:1 ratios for adult:juvenile birds earlier that week, and we saw
very few juvenile birds on the Refuge the day I was there.

As an ultimate measure of hunting frustration, I hunted on the Refuge
(from one of their reservation-only blinds) on the 23 of November.  We
drew a blind that was about 400m from the main body of water where
birds were shoulder to shoulder.  The birds hung out all day on the
refuge with small groups constantly coming and going to the fields.
Our 700 decoy spread, however, attracted only a few birds (3) out of
the entire half-million (there-in lies the frustration).  All three
birds were juveniles, and I succeeded in killing one (web-banded as a
nestling this past summer on La Peruse).  We did get a few additional
long passing shots, but did not connect.

According to my partner (a big-time goose hunter/biologist) the lack
of juvenile birds really hurts hunting as the juveniles are more
likely to first swing into the decoys and bring with them the adults.
With few juveniles out there, getting any birds in at all is really
difficult.  Our experience on the 23rd confirmed that.  Among the 6-7
groups hunting on the refuge that day, only 2 birds were killed and a
total of 85 birds had been killed in about 3 wks of hunting on the
refuge (including ducks I believe).

On a better note, adult survival is negatively correlated with
juvenile survival and thus, adults are likely to come through the
winter with high numbers (not surprising given how hard it is to hunt
these big flocks of smarter adults).  And, as an aside, you'll be
interested to know that over the last 15 yrs the adult snow goose
overwinter survival rate has increased from a very high 0.78 to 0.88!!
There will be geese for a long time to come.

Brent Danielson

-- 
Jessie@iastate.edu                                           Brent J. Danielson
515-294-5248                                               Dept. Animal Ecology
                                                          Iowa State University
                                                            Ames, IA 50011-3221


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