MIGRATORY GEESE have returned from Maryland to their nesting grounds in the Canadian north. The January count of Atlantic Flyway waterfowl found sharply divergent trends for the two most prominent species. This could presage a major change in wildlife management.
The Canada goose is still in decline, after two years of a hunting ban. Bad weather in the northern Quebec tundra limited reproduction of the bird that symbolizes Chesapeake waterfowl and was long the mainstay of Maryland hunting. Numbers for this wild goose are half what they were 20 years ago.
But the snow goose population continues to explode, up 400 percent in the flyway over the same period and still increasing. This despite Maryland hunting rules that allow hunters to bag eight geese a day in a 107-day season.
Because of its savagely efficient, group feeding habits, there is concern that the snow goose's aggressive expansion in Chesapeake wintering grounds will reduce food and habitat available for other birds, including the Canada goose. Snow geese are blamed for large bald spots that are appearing in marshes of Delaware's Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge.
There is even greater concern about their destruction -- actual desertification -- of fragile Arctic tundra breeding grounds, forcing out other wild fowl such as wigeons, yellow rails and yellow warblers. And about the geese's unchecked wintertime depredation of farms and wildlife habitat in the South and Great Plains.
The Arctic Goose Habitat Working Group, of wildlife managers and scientists studying the problem, recommends expanded hunting with (now illegal) baiting to control the snow goose. But snow geese are very skittish, travel in large protective flocks and often vary their feeding habits to foil hunters. Hunting has not kept them in check.
Meantime, hunting of migratory Canada geese will be off-limits for several more years. More breeding pairs were counted this winter, which could point to a resurgence, with favorable weather conditions. Human restraint can help restore the flocks of the Canada goose. But an effective control plan for the snow goose remains as elusive as that wary fowl.
Pub Date: 5/12/97
