Update on monitoring movement of geese population

Published 7:00 am Sunday, January 17, 2016

Paul Link recently passed along updated information on the progress of the travels of some of the white-fronted geese (specklebellies) that he had banded and to which he had attached tracking units.

Link is the North American Waterfowl Management Plan Coordinator for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and was given the responsibility of tracking a certain number of the geese.

In an earlier column, Link had pointed out that hunters and the LDWF had become concerned about the decline in the state’s population of the geese, that Louisiana had gone from wintering the majority of the specklebellies to a minority in 10 years.

He and student workers caught and attached tracking units to 11 of the geese.

The latest on this project follows:

“Since our press release,” Link said, “we lost one bird to an unknown cause of death. We recovered the transmitter in a soybean field near Brinkley, Arkansas. There were no footprints, animal tracks, bones or feathers near the transmitter. It could have been discarded or crippled by a hunter, killed by a predator or simply scavenged after natural causes of death.

“Another bird traveled from northeast Arkansas through the western portions of Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and southeast Missouri and is currently in the Missouri boot heel. The bird in Texas moved 100 miles further west. Four others are in Arkansas, two remain in Louisiana and one has been offline for a couple of weeks.”

Back in October, Link had captured six white-fonts, five of the birds having left the coastal zone within three days. Later five more were banded and released and in late December, six of the 11 were in Arkansas, four remained in the state and one was in Texas.

Link had said earlier that some of the reasons for the decline in the specklebellies in the state could be that Louisiana has experienced changes in agriculture, long-lasting hurricane effects, a doubling of hunters and the urbanization and industrialization throughout historic goose habitats.

Several local hunters recently passed along their own thoughts on the matter.

Bill Terry wrote, “Crawfish and sugarcane are our two largest crops now. Rice and beans are secondary. We witnessed this some years ago at Gum Cove with rice not being planted and this resulted in flight pattern change. Also we have witnessed more crops being planted in the north by certain organizations which could be a contributing factor to the short stopping of geese/ducks.”

Steven Broussard added the following: “I bought a farm in southern Kansas about five years ago. When I bought it, my country neighbor had never heard of a speckle-belly goose. The very next year we saw a few and he confirmed that was the first time he had ever seen one. The number of speckle-belly geese in Kansas has steadily increased each year. A few days ago my Kansas neighbor told me they were literally covered up with speckle-bellies and ducks. This is the area of Coldwater, Kansas, which has substantial agriculture. Also, very few people in the area duck or goose hunt. Some of the speckle-bellies he saw were on a lake but most were in dry agriculture fields.

“Given that southwest Louisiana has seen a substantial decline in agriculture, coupled with an increase in hunters, I suspect that is your answer — free food without getting shot. As I am sure you know, a speckle-belly prefers grain as a primary source of its diet so there is no reason they should leave states like Kansas.”