Did anybody attend the DNR public discussion meeting?

Kinda like people saying that ap population geese don’t meander into the late resident goose zone.

 

Trevor, anything is possible. Somehow birds adapted to ice ages and such. Where would this new breeding area be, specifically?

 

This is why this forum continues to go to ****...Actually, it is best not to assume anything unless all the facts are known and in hand..

The band returns I harvested from Blackwater were banded during the fall/winter migratory season... the biologist use "cannon nets" to catch fowl on the wintering grounds... it would be hard for them to establish wintering range since the birds are not "flightless" during that period...

 

I actually think that once they get to NY they fly due east and spend the whole summer on a deserted island in the middle of the Atlantic. It is common sense because the weather is mild and the beachy conditions help set the mood for breeding.

The biologists aren't looking there and anyone who says that is impossible is clearly a moron, no matter how much education and career they have devoted to studying these animals.

 

I thought Ugava went to **** after nesting

 

They are all up in the north country- that is Middletown de and it's hundreds of new stormwater management ponds

 

Makes logical sense some geese would get to the breeding grounds, see ice, and move back south until out of the ice, while many would remain and hope the ice melts. If you look at how much ducks will shift, leaving the prairie potholes and going up to the boreal forest if the prairies are dry, it's hard to think that from an entire population of geese none would compensate. But do they remain AP geese? Those birds may go back to AP breeding grounds the next year, or they may adapt the nesting grounds and wintering grounds of their "new flockmates". The young especially would not know their parent's ancestral breeding grounds, and would likely show fidelity to the new breeding grounds.

There is a bit of natural genetic flow between winter mixing populations. Just how much we don't know. I have seen a small neck collared SJBP female stay here and pair off with a large resident gander, then nest here. Not common, but it happens. It's one of the reasons many resident populations were stocked with 10-12 pound birds from midwest ancestry, but many of those flocks are running 8-10 pound birds these days with more smaller migratory genes that have been introduced into the flock over the years. The future of the AP flock depends on summer temps in Ungava, not much else. Hunting restrictions are a bandaid. Hopefully it helps, but it's not a cure.

As long as enough come south, I don't care where they are from. A big problem now is that there aren't enough geese coming south, and I guess the powers that be are thinking/hoping that the AP flock if it rebuilds will be the birds that still are willing to come south on the calendar.

Ever wonder if when southern Canada is dry do more RP birds move into Ungava to breed, thus inflating AP counts? Our knowledge is really so limited.

Still gotta say from those charts, PA and NY need more restricting than VA to save the AP birds. Or only let PA/NY hunt Dec15-Feb15 so the AP geese passing through in the fall and spring can make it safely. The hunters there can pound whatever AP birds decide to winter there.

 

And those birds still COULD be rp birds banded at blackwater. I wasn't aware all rp birds left the refuge when the AP birds moved in.