While waiting for spring to return, we can look for signs like early blooming plants that begin to poke their bright green tops out of the frozen soil and male American goldfinches that come to the feeder sporting snippets of their showy yellow feathers.
Another hint is often heard before it’s seen, as huge flocks of honking snow geese and their companions head north from their winter haunts. Last December when we traveled through Arkansas and northeast Texas, we saw fallow fields dotted with ridiculous numbers of big white birds, and significant squadrons of airborne clusters searching for food and water.
The impact of snow geese and Ross’s geese – known collectively as light or arctic geese – on the environment in the south is insignificant compared to the damage they do to the tundra they call home throughout most of the year. As their numbers peaked, they were destroying the fragile landscape where they nested and raised their young through the summer months.
Beginning this Saturday, Feb. 7, the Light Goose Conservation Order is in effect again in Missouri as hunters are provided relaxed rules and unrestricted bag limits during a time of year when all other waterfowl hunting seasons have closed.
The order, initially approved in the late 1990s by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arctic Goose Joint Venture in Canada, allows Missouri hunters to harvest snow, blue and Ross’s geese, through April 30. It also allows electronic calls and shotguns that can hold more than three shells.
Populations of snow geese and Ross’s geese have actually been trending down over the past decade, but the numbers are still impressive. Annual summer estimates across Canada and into the Arctic are about 6 million, down from a maximum of about 20 million in 2007. Hunter harvest statistics have shown similar declines.
Hunters have helped slow what had been spiraling growth, but other factors have had a more significant impact in both the rapid ascent and recent reductions. Traditionally the arctic geese spent their winters in the sea marshes along the Gulf coast, where food sources were more limited.
More recently, warmer winters have allowed the geese to stop in large, flooded agricultural fields and gorge themselves on ample supplies of waste grain. That ready food source has sent healthier geese back north to their breeding and nesting areas.
During the peak years of goose populations, they were eating so much of the young vegetation in their homeland that it could not keep pace with their appetites. Now the increased temperatures are causing another negative outcome. The hatching times of the geese was coordinated with the greatest resurgence of growth in the Arctic, providing food necessary for the growing goslings, but the green-up is getting earlier in the warmer environment and reducing young goose production.
Most of the declines are the result of the over-abundant population exceeding the habitat’s carrying capacity. Those massive numbers also make the birds more susceptible to disease. Avian flu deaths have not been significantly reported among light geese, but the potential for spreading contagions is dramatically increased in bigger crowds.
Missouri residents are required to purchase a Conservation Order Permit for $5.50 to hunt during the season, unless they have a Resident Lifetime Conservation Partner Permit or Lifetime Small Game hunting permit.
John Winkelman has been writing about outdoors news and issues in Jefferson County for more than 30 years and was the Associate Editor for Outdoor Guide Magazine. If you have story ideas for the Leader outdoor news page, e-mail ogmjohnw@aol.com, and you can find more outdoor news and updates at johnjwink.com.