Previously Unrecorded Colonies of Ross' and Lesser Snow Geese in the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary

Alisauskas, Ray T.; Boyd, Hugh

doi:10.14430/arctic1273

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(7 reference statements)

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“…Habitat quality and availability have been less well studied in most areas of the Canadian arctic (but see Alisauskas et al 2006 b ), but continued growth and expansion of nesting colonies farther north suggests that carrying capacity has not yet been reached, at least at some of these colonies (Alisauskas and Boyd 1994, Kerbes et al 2006). Until recently (e.g., Alisauskas et al 2006 b ), most habitat assessments occurred in the southern breeding range of midcontinent snow geese, with researchers focusing on the interplay between foraging activity of geese and long‐term impacts on vegetation (Jefferies et al 2003, 2004; Abraham et al 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Alisauskas

Rockwell

Dufour

et al. 2011

Wildlife Monographs

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101

168

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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 harvest, 2) geographic and temporal distribution of recoveries by age class, 3) survival and recovery probability, and 4) abundance of snow geese each August using Lincoln's (1930) method. We also modeled population growth to infer the form of population response to management efforts. Toward that end, we also proposed a method of estimating conservation‐order harvest and tested for differences in band‐reporting rate between Canada and the United States. Overall, the balance of evidence favored the conclusion that the midcontinent population has continued to grow during the conservation order, although perhaps at a reduced rate. We suggest that annual rate of population growth $({\hat {\lambda }})$, derived from estimates of annual population size in August, likely provides the most reliable inference about change in the midcontinent population. There was a decline in annual survival probability between these 2 periods from about 0.89 to about 0.83 among snow geese from the southern‐nesting stratum (south of 60°N...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Alisauskas

Rockwell

Dufour

et al. 2011

Wildlife Monographs

Self Cite

101

168

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“…Exposed peat covered only 0.3% of our QMG study area, based on the Landsat imagery of 1986–1992 that Didiuk and Ferguson () used. Since that time, the number of colonies in the QMG Bird Sanctuary increased (Alisauskas and Boyd ) from those known in 1988 (Kerbes ), and several have continued to spread in size as the nesting population has continued to increase. For example, terrestrial habitat occupied by snow and Ross's geese at Karrak Lake increased tenfold from 27.2 km 2 in 1988 to 276.7 km 2 in 2010, when 1.16 million light geese were estimated to have nested there (Alisauskas et al ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Relief features consist of Precambrian outcrops and boulder fields, as well as glacio‐fluvial remnants such as eskers, drumlins, and raised beaches (McCormick et al ). The area is recognized for its importance to an array of bird species, most notably as a key breeding and molting site for large numbers of waterfowl (Alisauskas ). In 1961, the area was designated as a Migratory Bird Sanctuary under the Migratory Bird Convention Act to formally protect nesting birds.…”

Section: Study Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling probability of waterfowl encounters from satellite imagery of habitat in the central Canadian arctic

Conkin

Alisauskas

2013

Jour. Wild. Mgmt.

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We used aerial survey and corresponding digital land cover data to develop species‐habitat models to describe breeding‐ground distributions and landscape‐level habitat associations of greater white‐fronted geese (Anser albifrons), Canada (Branta canadensis) and cackling geese (B. hutchinsii), tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus), king eiders (Somateria spectabilis), and long‐tailed ducks (Clangula hyemalis). We then used habitat associations in the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird Sanctuary and the Rasmussen Lowlands, Nunavut, Canada, in models to predict distributions of focal species in each study area. We used the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) method and the area‐under‐the‐curve (AUC) metric to evaluate predictive accuracy (hereafter, quality) of models. In the Queen Maud Gulf, AUC values suggested reasonable model discrimination for white‐fronted geese, Canada geese, and tundra swans (i.e., AUC > 0.7). Quality of species‐habitat models for king eiders and long‐tailed ducks was less than other species considered, but these models still predicted encounters and non‐encounters significantly better than the null model. For all species, quality of species‐habitat models was lesser for the Rasmussen Lowlands than for the Queen Maud Gulf, although discrimination ability for Rasmussen Lowland distributions remained significantly better than corresponding null models for geese and swans, but not for seaducks. Our research suggested that species' distributions modeled with landscape‐level habitat data is a tractable method to 1) identify habitat associations, 2) determine key habitats and regions, and 3) predict probable summer distributions of some waterfowl species over relatively large areas of the arctic from satellite imagery. © 2013 The Wildlife Society.

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“…Ross's Geese are now common in the midcontinent region (see Alisauskas 1998) and appear to be continuing their eastward shift in winter distribution ). On their arctic nesting grounds, new breeding colonies have formed (Alisauskas and Boyd 1994;Alisauskas, unpublished data) and existing colonies have enlarged (MacInnes and Kerbes 1987;Alisauskas and Boyd 1994), yet others have been abandoned (Alisauskas, unpublished data). The rapid change in Ross's Goose breeding and winter distribution draws attention to dispersal as a potential factor influencing population dynamics; dispersal has certainly facilitated the pioneering of midcontinent habitats where the occurrence of Ross's Geese during winter has changed from rare to common.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Movement and persistence by Ross’s Geese (Chen rossii) in Canada’s arctic

et al. 2010

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We have been studying population biology of Ross's Geese south of Queen Maud Gulf (QMG) in Canada's central arctic from 1989 to 2008. Many Ross's Geese there nest in a small number of discrete colonies which form the QMG metapopulation. In addition to capture and marking of geese, we have used ground-based sampling of nests to estimate the annual rate of population growth at Karrak Lake, one of the largest colonies within the QMG metapopulation. Between 1993 and 2008, Ross's Geese at Karrak Lake have been growing in an uninterrupted fashion at about 11% per year and numbered about 726,000 ± 91,000 (95% CL) breeders in 2008. In addition, substantial numbers of Ross's Geese had colonized an area about 750 km southeast of QMG at McConnell River on the west coast of Hudson Bay (WHB) in 1994. We have been marking Ross's Geese at WHB from 2001 to 2006. In addition, we used complementary ground-based methods similar to those at QMG to estimate annually the abundance of nesting geese at WHB. The population increased at WHB by 11% per year between 2003 and 2007, a rate very similar to that observed at Karrak Lake near QMG. In 2007, the population of nesting Ross's Geese at WHB was about 81,000 ± 12,000. In addition to contributions through local recruitment, we wished to better understand the role of movement and source-sink dynamics between QMG and WHB. We used joint multistate-dead recovery mark-recapture models to estimate movement probability of adults between these two regions. The greater likelihood of movement (0.24 ± 0.18) from WHB to QMG, compared to the inverse (0.05 ± 0.04) was restricted to males; there was virtually complete philopatry by females at both study areas. The high rate of philopatry by adult females suggested that population growth in each study area was most likely sustained by in situ recruitment. We also tested and confirmed the assumption that movement probability between regions was unrelated to marker type.

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Previously Unrecorded Colonies of Ross' and Lesser Snow Geese in the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary

Cited by 17 publications

References 2 publications

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

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

Modeling probability of waterfowl encounters from satellite imagery of habitat in the central Canadian arctic

Movement and persistence by Ross’s Geese (Chen rossii) in Canada’s arctic

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