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January 26, 2009

Mid-Winter Waterfowl Survey Completed

The North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s annual mid-winter waterfowl survey revealed 9,700 Canada geese were wintering on the Missouri River in early January.

Mike Szymanski, waterfowl biologist, said there appeared to be a significant amount of geese on the river in early December, but a mid-December blizzard pushed a lot of birds out of the state. “Not only did we lose a lot of geese, but hunting conditions became extremely difficult because the amount of snow limited hunter access to fields.”

In recent years, winter weather has been unseasonably mild with little snow, resulting in increasing numbers of Canada geese using the river through winter. “When several years of favorable conditions are strung together, you can start to build new migratory traditions,” Szymanski said. “In fact, since 2005 a new record was set every year, and in 2008 it peaked at about 175,000 geese.”

Prior to 1998, it was rare to count more than 10,000 Canada geese on the river during the mid-winter survey. From 1998 to 2004, the number bounced between 2,000 and 89,000 geese.

“The natural tendency for geese is to stay as far north as long as possible,” Szymanski said. “Canada geese can really tolerate low temperatures, but that desire to stay north is tempered by their tolerance for hunting pressure and snow depth. Winter returned with a vengeance this year and conditions were worse than these geese would tolerate.”

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