Harvest, survival, and abundance of midcontinent lesser snow geese relative to population reduction efforts

• Published in: Wildlife Monographs
• Main Authors: Alisauskas, Ray T., Rockwell, Robert F., Dufour, Kevin W., Cooch, Evan G., Zimmerman, Guthrie, Drake, Kiel L., Leafloor, James O., Moser, Timothy J., Reed, Eric T.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2011
• Subjects: Arctic; Hudson Bay; Canada; Hudson; Blanco; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wmon.5; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fwmon.5; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wmon.5

Abstract We assessed the effectiveness of an extensive and unprecedented wildlife reduction effort directed at a wide‐ranging migratory population of geese. Population reduction efforts that targeted several populations of light geese (greater snow geese [ Chen caerulescens atlantica ], lesser snow geese [ C. c. caerulescens ], and Ross's geese [ C. rossii ]) began in 1999 in central and eastern North America. Such efforts were motivated by a broad consensus that abundance of these geese was causing serious ecological damage to terrestrial and salt marsh ecosystems in central and eastern parts of the Canadian Arctic and subarctic regions along Hudson Bay. Starting in February 1999, special conservation measures (or, in the U.S., a conservation order) were added to the respective federal regulations that permitted hunters to take snow geese (in parts of Canada and the U.S.) and Ross's geese (in parts of the U.S.) during specified harvest periods outside of the hunting season. These measures were accompanied by increase or removal of daily kill and possession limits and by permissions to use previously prohibited equipment for hunting these species in certain regions of the continent. The intent was to reduce adult survival through increased hunting mortality, which was judged to be the most cost‐effective approach to reversing population growth. Our principal goal was to assess the effectiveness of reduction efforts directed at the midcontinent population of lesser snow geese, which was thought to be the most serious threat to arctic and subarctic ecosystems of the 3 light goose populations. Our multiple objectives included the estimation and detection of change in the response measures of total annual harvest, harvest rate, survival rate, and abundance, using the 1998 hunting period (defined as 1 Aug 1998 to 31 Jul 1999) as a point of reference. We used information about hunter recoveries of leg‐banded snow geese and estimates of regular‐season harvest to estimate 1) conservation‐order harvest and total annual ...