RESEARCH SHEDS LIGHT ON GIANT GOOSE POPULATION IN ARKANSAS

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The population of Canada geese—a species that all but disappeared from the American landscape in the 1950s—has rallied to problematic proportions. Researchers from the University of Arkansas are tracking these birds to learn how to prevent them from becoming a major nuisance in Arkansas.

In the 1950s, the population of a bird that once made its year-round home in Arkansas was decimated by hunting and was thought to be extinct.

However, pockets of the birds appeared in other states, and in 1981, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) introduced 85 giant Canada geese into the Western Arkansas River Valley near Clarksville; they continued to import birds and the population increased. Recently, the commission has started to receive nuisance complaints about the birds from golf courses and home owners. Now the first research on the Arkansas birds is helping the commission determine how to regulate the successful reintroduction of this game species.

Over the past two years, University of Arkansas graduate student Andrew James, Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit leader David Krementz, Mike Checkett, waterfowl biologist with the AGFC and their colleagues have banded and collared about 2,500 geese in an effort to estimate the population, track goose movements and determine the vulnerability of the goose population to hunting. The goal is to standardize methods for managing the resident Canada goose populations and supply data needed to support changes in Canada goose hunting regulations.

Indeed, University of Arkansas researchers and the AGFC hope to prevent problems experienced by many northern states, where large urban goose populations have presented pollution hazards. The geese show great flexibility in habitat preference and they love mowed grass and open water—characteristics of many urban parks and golf courses.

To conduct their research, the biologists rounded up the birds along a 60-mile stretch in the Lake Dardanelle region of the Arkansas River Valley between Mulberry and Russellville. They set up a pen made with wing nets, round up the birds with boats and drive them into the pens—much like amphibious cowboys. They determined the age and sex of the birds, placed collars on their necks and released them.

Using a computer program to model the population growth, they estimate the current goose population along that corridor to be about 7,000 birds.

"There are a lot more geese there than anyone thought at first, and the population’s getting bigger," James said.

The researchers looked at the population during three different seasons—during the molting season from mid-summer to fall, when the birds shed their flying feathers; during migration season from mid-fall to late winter; and during the nesting season from spring to mid-summer. Although the giant Canada goose is a "resident" bird, spending its entire year in one region, the researchers have found that many of the birds make a "molt migration," flying north to the Great Lakes region and losing their flying feathers for about a month before returning to Arkansas. Indeed, the band recovery data for the study found birds as far north as Canada.

The Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the University of Arkansas and the Wildlife Management Institute. This research is also funded by grants from the Arkansas Audubon Society Trust.