Decreased survival of pink‐footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus carrying shotgun pellets
Pink‐footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus caught during March–April 1990–1992 in western Jutland, Denmark, were examined for shotgun pellets by X‐ray photography, marked by individual colour neck‐bands and released. Based on resightings during 1991–1995, survival rates of pellet carriers (N = 114) and...
| Published in: | Wildlife Biology |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
1996
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.2981/wlb.1996.035 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.2981/wlb.1996.035 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2981/wlb.1996.035 |
| Summary: | Pink‐footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus caught during March–April 1990–1992 in western Jutland, Denmark, were examined for shotgun pellets by X‐ray photography, marked by individual colour neck‐bands and released. Based on resightings during 1991–1995, survival rates of pellet carriers (N = 114) and non‐carriers (N = 230) were compared. Annual resighting probabilities were more than 99%, resulting in a high precision of survival rate estimates. No indications of differences in survival between sexes or age classes (first‐year and older) were found, but pellet carriers had a significantly lower survival (0.765) than non‐carriers (0.869), this difference being constant between years and cohorts. Since pellet carrying individuals could theoretically represent a non‐random subset of the population, this is not conclusive evidence that infliction of pellets affects survival. The lower survival affects the frequency of adult pellet carriers found in X‐ray samplings. Correcting for this, the evidence strongly suggests that pellets are inflicted upon at least 0.7 goose for each bagged one. |
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