Ross’s Goose (Chen rossi) Nesting Colony at East Bay, Southampton Island, Nunavut

• Published in: The Canadian Field-Naturalist
• Main Authors: Nissley, Clark, Williams, Christopher K., Abraham, Kenneth F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Canadian Field-Naturalist 2016
• Subjects: Ross’s Goose; Chen rossi; nesting; Southampton Island; East Bay Migratory Bird Sanctuary; Nunavut; life on land; Arctic; Canada; East Bay; Brant; Long Point; Branta bernicla; Central Arctic
• Online Access: https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/33614

This article was originally published in Canadian Field-Naturalist. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.22621/cfn.v130i1.1786. Copyright for Canadian Field-Naturalist content is held by the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club, except for content published by employees of federal government departments, in which case the copyright is held by the Crown. In-copyright content available at the Biodiversity Heritage Library is available for re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. For usage of content at the BHL for purposes other than those allowed under this licence, contact Canadian Field-Naturalist. Most Ross’s Geese (Chen rossi) nest in the central arctic of North America, but the range has expanded eastward in the last two decades. In summer 2014, we discovered a cluster of 48 nesting pairs of Ross’s Geese at East Bay Migratory Bird Sanctuary,Southampton Island, Nunavut. The Ross’s Goose colony was between an upland Lesser Snow Goose (Chen caerulescens caerulescens) nesting area and a low-lying Cackling Goose (Branta hutchinsii) and Atlantic Brant (Branta bernicla) nesting area, in a zone dominated by ponds and lakes and interspersed with areas of moss and graminoids. Our discovery documents a previously unknown level of nesting of Ross’s Geese at East Bay and corroborates unpublished evidence of growing numbers of the species on Southampton Island and expansion of its breeding range. Funding for this study was provided by the Canadian Wildlife Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service through the Arctic Goose Joint Venture, the Polar Continental Shelf Program of Natural Resources Canada, California Waterfowl through the Dennis Raveling Scholarship, Long Point Waterfowl in coordination with Delta waterfowl through the Dave Ankney and Sandi Johnson Waterfowl and Wetlands Graduate Research Scholarship, the University of Delaware, and Trent University. The field work was conducted under permits from the Canadian Wildlife ...