Squaw Creek NWR Discontinues Goose Hunt

Squaw Creek NWR Discontinues Goose Hunt

Mound City, Missouri-- Due to low hunter interest and a low harvest rate, Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge has decided not to conduct a light goose hunt during the spring 2007 Conservation Order season.

In 2006, a permit was issued to a hunting outfitter to guide hunters in a designated 236-acre portion of the refuge to harvest lesser snow geese and Ross’ geese. A 90-day hunting season in 2005 resulted in a total of 12 hunters participating in the program and harvesting only two snow geese.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implemented the Conservation Order to reduce numbers of snow and Ross’s geese. Squaw Creek Refuge’s light goose hunt was initiated on a trial basis in accordance with the Conservation Order mandate. The hunt was designed to increase the overall harvest of light geese in northwest Missouri. This is the ninth consecutive year the Conservation Order has been in effect. Both species have increased in number causing damage to portions of the fragile Arctic Tundra regions.

Additional questions and information regarding discontinuing the 2007 spring light goose hunt on the refuge can be obtained by calling the refuge headquarters at (660) 442-3187.

Squaw Creek Refuge is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is a field station within the National Wildlife Refuge System. The refuge is located in extreme northwest Missouri 5 miles south of Mound City and 30 miles north of St. Joseph, Missouri. This 7,441 acre refuge includes approximately 6,700 acres of floodplain that is managed as wetland, grassland, and riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.

Learn more about riparian
habitat. Visitors may take I-29 to exit 79, then travel two and * miles west on Highway 159 to the refuge entrance.

For further information please visit our website at: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/squawcreek

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 96-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 545 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.