Part VI
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE ACTION
Arctic Goose Habitat Working Group
CONCLUSIONS
The Arctic Goose Habitat Working Group concludes:
- Over-abundance of several populations of Arctic-nesting geese in
North America is causing major damage to Arctic habitats used by geese
and other wildlife. In some cases this goes beyond a simple "habitat
problem" and more on the scale of an "ecosystem in peril".
- A "trophic cascade" of events, resulting from over-grazing
and grubbing by some Arctic geese, creates soil salinity and moisture
conditions that lead to desertification of the affected Arctic
landscapes. These habitats will not likely regain their original plant
communities for many decades into the next millennium. The most degraded
of these habitats will likely never recover.
- This habitat damage is increasing in extent and will not be
corrected or reversed by any known natural phenomena. We cannot forecast
how long it will be before most of the finite supply of habitat that is
available for nesting by tundra- and coastal-breeding birds will be
permanently degraded or destroyed. However, the destruction is
progressing at a rapid rate with several major breeding colonies of
mid-continent lesser snow geese showing extensive signs of permanent
habitat degradation.
- Habitats used by mid-continent white geese are in particular
jeopardy. The degradation is such that recruitment rates at several
large nesting colonies have declined. In the short term, however, such
declines will not likely bring those colonies or the entire
mid-continent population under control through density dependent
regulation. As nesting and especially brood rearing habitat declines,
families simply disperse to adjacent areas that are not yet degraded.
Recruitment for those families increases and the geographically larger
colony grows in number and continues to spread further. It is not known
for how long or over what geographic range this expanding cycle of local
growth, degradation and dispersal can or will continue.
- There appears to be only two ultimate outcomes if management
agencies chose a "do-nothing" approach to dealing with these
problems: for one, the population will decline dramatically (crash)
after recruitment rates fall to the level where they could not maintain
numbers in the face of mortality from all hunting and non-hunting
causes, especially those related to senescence of surviving adults. If
this were to occur, we believe the decline would happen during the early
part of the next century and the recovery of populations would be
protracted beyond the next century because the habitat to support the
rebuilding of populations would be extremely limited.
Alternatively,
the population could remain at relatively high levels, likely continuing
to grow for several years, with geese in ever-worsening physiological
condition followed by the ultimate destruction of a major component of
the Arctic ecosystem that is important, not only to white geese, but
also to other geese and a wide variety of migrant and resident
vertebrates. Problems with white geese and agriculture in southern areas
would continue to grow. Besides the ecosystem consequences, some
specialists believe this would lead to high populations of poorly-
conditioned birds living, effectively, in "slum" conditions,
and this is why the problem will not be self-correcting.
- Natural resource managers, charged with the long-term welfare of
these populations and their habitats, have the responsibility of
implementing management programs to prevent the future ecological
disaster that we believe is inevitable. A time-frame for the occurrence
of widespread ecosystem breakdown isn't readily apparent, since there
has been no directly related "real world" experience for
managers and scientists by which to make such projections. However, we
know the process has already started, we know it is expanding and we
think that damage to the most severely degraded habitat is essentially
permanent.
- The most effective population reduction efforts will focus on
reducing adult survival as this is the prime factor sustaining growth of
these populations.
- No single technique will solve these problems. Multifaceted and
multiagency approaches are required. Most of these will require actions
beyond normal waterfowl harvest management frameworks.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Arctic Goose Habitat Working Group recommends that:
- The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife
Service should assign full time staff coordinators to developing and
advancing effective strategies to reduce mid-continent white geese to
the desired population levels. This should be established and promoted
under an international program named something like the Arctic Goose
Management Initiative of the Arctic Goose Joint Venture. The Working
Group should be retained in an expert advisory capacity, but believes
strongly that full-time staff attention to this problem is needed.
- A comprehensive communications strategy should be developed and
implemented by the CWS and USFWS to inform the general public,
sportsmen, private conservation groups, animal welfare organizations,
government officials and native American and Canadian aboriginal peoples
of the problem caused by over-abundance of certain Arctic and sub-Arctic
goose populations. This should be initially focused on mid-continent
white geese as they are causing the most severe Arctic ecosystem damage.
A fully informed public is critical to the successful implementation of
any future management actions.
- The responsible public agencies in Canada and the U.S. should
implement proactive population reduction measures to reduce
mid-continent white goose populations to a level of about 50% of current
numbers by the year 2005. This requires that the population growth rate
be reduced to an annual level of between 0.85 and 0.95 (5% - 15%
reduction in total numbers per year) from the current growth rate of
about 1.05 (5% growth per year). Because the main driving force in
population growth rate is adult survival and because most of the
specific population reduction recommendations relate to increasing the
kill by hunters, the harvest rate should be increased to about 3 times
the current level.
- All the management strategies included in Part IV of this report
should be considered as viable alternatives for increasing harvest of
mid-continent white geese. These have been reviewed and scrutinized by a
broad range of professional waterfowl managers from the U.S. and Canada
and represent actions that respect the integrity of the birds as
important resources for the public at large, as game birds for hunters
and as food for all these groups.
- We applaud the fact that two of the Working Group's recommendations
have already been implemented in the Central and Mississippi Flyways for
1996, namely: 1) extending snow goose hunting frameworks to March 10th,
and; 2) increasing possession limits to 3 and 4 times the daily bag. We
also applaud the Arviat Hunters and Trappers initiative to explore the
feasibility of increasing harvest of adults near the McConnell River.
The following additional steps should be implemented by the fall of
1997: 1) legalize the use of electronic calling devices for snow goose
hunting; 2) legalize baiting for snow geese in special snow goose
population reduction seasons, and; 3) provide additional hunting on and
around state, provincial and federal refuges by opening additional areas
to hunting and reducing food resources to disperse birds to surrounding
farm land.
- Increased harvest by northern residents will also reduce adult
survival and thus the growth rate of mid-continent white geese.
Discussions should proceed with native Canadians to further develop
their participation in this international waterfowl
conservation/ecosystem management initiative. For example, we believe
native Canadians should be encouraged to increase their harvest of adult
white geese to whatever can be effectively used to subsidize their
annual nutritional requirements. Restrictions on egging of snow goose
eggs should be removed. The Natives should be encouraged to shift
hunting pressure that they currently apply to other goose populations,
especially those in poor population status such as the Southern James
Bay Canada geese, to white geese. Consultation with the aboriginal
peoples should be pursued to search for other methods that they may be
able to employ in this cause.
- Through Treaty amendment or through special waterfowl management
provisions under the current Treaty, extend the hunting period for
midcontinent white geese beyond both the current 107 day limit and the
March 10th closing date. We urge that this be done within one year of
the delivery of this report. This will directly raise additive mortality
on breeding-age birds. White geese are in the best condition of the
whole annual cycle at this time of year, and therefore are also at their
best, in terms of food quality for humans.
- We emphasize that the evaluation strategy outlined in Part V of this
report should be further developed and implemented as part of an overall
white goose population management initiative. This should be phased in
over the next few years as technical considerations are resolved and as
funds become available. The Working Group does not believe that
management actions to reduce populations should be held back until all
technical and financial considerations for an evaluation effort are
resolved. There is virtually no risk that implementation of the
management tools described in this report will have an overwhelming or
irreversible impacts on population size in the near term. There is
considerable urgency to reduce population growth rates of white geese
and to begin to learn about the many other factors impacted by new
regulations, such as public acceptance and enforceability. Further,
there will undoubtedly be a time lag during which hunters will equip
themselves, learn new hunting methods and become more comfortable with
the major changes such as late winter and spring hunting. Implementation
of the Arctic Goose Management Initiative should provide excellent
opportunities for integration of monitoring and management activities in
an effective adaptive management application wherein on-going feed- back
from monitoring is used directly to modify, or affirm, future management
actions.
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