Canada Geese

St. Mary's College in Southern Maryland went to a national sailing championship earlier this month and brought home its first national athletic title from the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Association Sloop Nationals.The team from the college in St. Mary's City qualified for the competition by winning the Mid-Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association championships last month.Sailing for St. Mary's were All-America Tim Healy of Niantic, Conn., Bob Oberg of Westmont. N.J., and Peter S. Thompson of Annapolis.

While the hunting season for migratory Canada geese has been closed in the Atlantic Flyway by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, parameters for duck-hunting seasons and bag limits likely will be expanded in response to population increases.In Maryland, the Department of Natural Resources proposes to expand the October split of the season to four days, the November split to seven and the final split to 39 days in December and January.DNR also proposes a daily bag limit of four birds, although the Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines would allow five.

The Department of Natural Resources last week presented its proposed waterfowl seasons and bag limits for 1998-1999, including an extended season for resident Canada geese in certain parts of the state and the possibility of a longer October split for duck season.Maryland seasons are set within a framework established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which sets the maximum season length, largest bag limits and earliest and latest season openings and closings.While the federal framework allows a six-duck daily bag limit, DNR again is proposing a basic bag of four and two bonus teal per day in any of the three season splits.

Its thick green scales, glowing yellow eyes and menacing toothy grin were designed to intimidate the waterfowl. But, so far, this phony alligator head, bobbing on the calm waters of Westminster Community Pond, has not scared a single creature. The ploy doesn't even fool the children who play in the surrounding park and feed the ever-increasing number of fowl. "He is not scary, and he is fake," said Ryan Black, 4, visiting the park with his grandmother. "I don't see him swimming." In an effort to control the proliferating population of Canada geese and domestic ducks, Carroll County spent $150 for a pair of plastic alligators and dropped one in the 1-acre pond, a few hundred yards from the noise and traffic on Route 140. The other plastic gator is in reserve, waiting for a possible assignment.

It's that time of year when the Canada geese are on the move. The early October nip in the air seemed to have rousted the big birds into the air and put them into their V-formations for another season. When it comes down to it, I rather like the visiting Canada geese. They leave northern Canadian places like the Ungava Peninsula (which I include only because Ungava is fun to say; similarly, the genus name for toads is fun to say, Bufo; certainly there are others, but I digress)

This is the week that many Maryland hunters await eagerly each year.On Tuesday, the four-day second split of duck season opens, followed on Wednesday by the start of a three-day, first split of Canada goose season. Saturday will be the opening day for the two-week modern-firearms season for deer.Hunting grounds have been selected and scouted and the daily movements of does and bucks noted and cataloged. Rifles and slug guns have been cleaned and sighted-in and cleaned again.Waterfowl decoys have been touched up, cords have been replaced or re-tied, hip boots or waders have been tested for leaks and duck and goose calls have been handled often.

Final revisions to regulations for the 1996-1997 waterfowl hunting seasons are complete, and Maryland has chosen a conservative four-duck daily limit and lengthened the season for canvasbacks.DNR also has elected to experiment with a winter season for resident Canada geese and hold a youth waterfowl hunt on Nov. 2.DNR secretary John R. Griffin said the season dates and limits were finalized after evaluating public testimony at a series of four waterfowl meetings held around the state.A record fall flight of ducks could have allowed five ducks per day over a 50-day season under guidelines formed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said last week that it would close the hunting season for migratory Canada geese for at least one year starting this fall, hunters, outfitters and biologists said it could be beneficial to the goose population -- so long as the closure was throughout the Atlantic Flyway.The USFWS closure is intended to cover the American states in the territory, and now Canada will follow suit with a ban on hunting in areas crucial to Maryland's migratory population of Canada geese.

If Tydings Owen McGinnis had known selling 45 stuffed Canada geese decoys was a federal offense, he says he certainly wouldn't have advertised the sale of the birds in the newspaper."

For many Marylanders, our state bird should rightly be the Canada goose, a majestic, graceful symbol of the Chesapeake Bay and the Land of Pleasant Living despite its foreign name. The graceful, fluid V-flight of the long-necked honkers is one of the most thrilling sights in nature. (The official Baltimore oriole is not a distinct species, is little seen here, and its only Maryland connection is a shared plumage with the Calvert clan.)Sadly, the numbers of Canada geese in this area have been declining for nearly a decade.