Reducing the abundance of agricultural waste grain seems unlikely, but managers could reduce the availability of food and resting habitat on public lands. Such changes could increase harvest and decrease survival and productivity of snow geese, but may also have negative affects on other wildlife species that depend on these resources. Removing half-day hunting and eliminating waterfowl rest areas in North Dakota has been discussed. These management strategies are designed to retain snow geese in the state during the fall, thereby increasing harvest opportunities. Eliminating them is not considered useful for increasing harvest at this time.
Any management strategy comes with a degree of uncertainty.
We are also uncertain about what population level would allow recovery of arctic habitats, and the number of snow geese arctic habitats can sustain. Any management action must be accompanied by a monitoring program designed to measure the level of control exerted and response of remote arctic habitats. Although harvest surveys and population surveys are already in place, refinements may be needed. Monitoring of arctic habitats is expensive and difficult. We need to develop new techniques, such as satellite monitoring of the landscape.