The geese have started to arrive in Anchorage! The Anchorage Waterfowl Working Group (AWWG) announced today that organized Canada goose egg collections will start in early May, 1999. This is the second year of an egg collection program aimed at slowing the growing number of geese in Anchorage as a part of the overall goose management plan. The AWWG reminds everyone that taking eggs outside of the organized program is against the law.
According to biologists, the first goose arrived last week, and they report seeing hundreds more everyday. At the peak in mid-May almost 5,000 geese spend their days in Anchorage nesting, feeding and resting.
"We will collect eggs on only one or two occasions to minimize impacts on other nesting birds, and egg collectors will leave one egg in each nest," said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Karen Laing. "Geese will usually incubate and hatch the one viable egg left in each nest. If we took all the eggs, geese would be more likely to renest.
The Anchorage Canada goose population has risen from a few hundred in the mid 1970s to approximately 4,600 in 1998. Habitat change due to increased urban development has caused this increase. Geese prefer the short grass found in lawns and adjacent open water areas in ponds and lakes. The increasing Canada goose population has presented safety, economic, and nuisance problems as well as health risks for geese and humans. Local airports currently spend over $400,000 each year to keep runways clear of geese.
Collection of goose eggs was the method most acceptable to the public as a means of reducing the growth of the Anchorage goose population, according to comments received on the draft "Environmental Assessment: Canada Goose Population Management in Anchorage, Alaska." The Environmental Assessment was finalized in March 1998, and is available by calling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 786-3309.
"Although collecting eggs alone will not lower the present goose population, it will slow population growth," Laing said. "In addition, biologists plan to move goslings out of the city before they learn to fly. We expect that relocated goslings will return in the following years to the area where they learned to fly, thus further reducing the growth of the Anchorage Canada goose population.
In addition to egg collecting and gosling relocation, researchers at Alaska Pacific University are working with the Municipality, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Northern Native Seeds, Inc. to find landscaping plants that are unpalatable to geese.
Egg-collecting, translocation and plant research might not be sufficient to lower the population to 2,000, which airports consider a safe level. Currently, geese in Anchorage are killed only at airports.
Participants will collect goose eggs on land owned by the Municipality of Anchorage, and possibly on private land. Private landowners willing to allow egg collection should contact Jerry Walton at the Municipality at 343-4475.
Anyone who would like to volunteer to collect eggs should call Marlene Schroeder of the Southcentral Foundation at 265-4224, or Marlene Adams of Cook Inlet Tribal Council at 337-9098. Egging will be done in organized searches by volunteers trained and supervised by the Municipality, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, USDA Wildlife Services, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists. To participate, all volunteers collecting eggs will need copies of the Federal and State permits with their names on them.
"As with last year, we will donate all eggs to the Elders Programs of the above organizations for consumption," Laing said. Federal law requires that eggs be donated to a charitable organization, and cannot be used for personal consumption by volunteers.
For more information on Anchorage geese visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website at: www.r7.fws/mbm/ancgeese/.
FWS
For further information contact: Connie M.J. Barclay at (907) 786-3309
