It wasn't until the Endangered Species Act in 1972 that the mechanism existed for a recovery team, Byrd says. Byrd and his team started trapping and shooting the foxes in 1974. Most poisons can't be used on federal refuges because they go up the food chain to top predators such as eagles. Twenty-six years later there are an estimated 35,000 geese. Each spring crews are dispatched to the islands for four to six months of fox duty.
Birds come from the smaller islands and repopulate the ones the foxes have been removed from.
The goose was the impetus, but it was sort of a surrogate for all the species. The biggest threats to birds in the Aleutians right now, Byrd says, are ocean conditions that affect food supply, changes in prey population due to marine cycles, overfishing, oil spills and driftnets. But there are still ghost nets out there. The goose has recovered to the point that it may be removed from the endangered list later this year. Byrd says it's an example of how well the Endangered Species Act can work.