Posted December 2, 2008

    By Art Lander Jr.

    OutdoorsKentucky.Com

     Giant Canada Geese Now 42 Percent of Harvest

       

    The Giant Canada Goose (Branta canadensis maxima), a subspecies believed to be extinct in North America in the 1950s, is flourishing in the Mississippi Flyway, and has become a major component of Kentucky’s waterfowl harvest.

    “We’re in the process of revising our data, but we believe our spring population was about 41,000 birds,” said Rocky Pritchert, waterfowl biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “Since the 1980s, harvest of giant Canada geese in Kentucky has grown from a small percentage to about 42 percent of our overall goose harvest.”

    In 1962 a small flock of giant Canada geese was discovered wintering in Rochester, MN, by Harold Hanson of the Illinois Natural History Survey. A restoration program, which included the captive rearing and stocking of descendants from the discovered flock, created populations throughout the Mississippi flyway states.

    “Today, there are more than one million giant Canada geese in the flyway, with Michigan having the most, about 200,000 birds,” said Pritchert.

    Kentucky is one of several states in region which has an early goose season (nine days in September), which targets locally-raised birds.

    Giant Canada geese are resident birds that pair up in late winter and begin nesting in early March. They are very territorial, and typically nest along rivers, and on the banks of farm ponds, small lakes and major reservoirs. “The average clutch is about five goslings, in a poor reproductive year, two to three,” said Pritchert. “From banding data we know that we have relatively low productivity, due to high predation.”

    Giant Canada geese don’t re-nest if their eggs are destroyed. Skunks and raccoons are the top nest predators, while foxes, coyotes and snapping turtles prey on young goslings, Pritchert said.

    Local birds flock up in the fall, and migrate around the region during the fall and winter, depending on weather and food availability, but they typically return to where they were born when nesting begins.

    Through banding data, biologists discovered that some residents mingle with migratory geese, and end up summering in Canada. “They aren’t breeding birds,” said Pritchert. “They are either immature birds, or pairs whose eggs (in the nest) were lost. They spend the summer in Hudson Bay, and arrive back in Kentucky in late August.”

    Kentucky’s resident goose populations are highest in the central part of the state, “between the Green River Parkway, and the Mountain Parkway,” said Pritchert. “There aren’t as many birds in far western Kentucky, and the eastern mountain counties, because there’s not as much habitat.”

    Farmlands, with farm ponds adjacent to grassy pastures, are the preferred combination of feeding and nesting habitat. “That’s why resident goose populations are highest in Central Kentucky, and right now some of the state’s best goose hunting opportunities are in the region.”

    This year Kentucky’s goose season was increased by 20 days, and will continue through January 31, 2009, with a bag limit of two birds.

    Pritchert said goose season was lengthened in hopes of creating more opportunity for hunters, and as a way to prevent crop depredation, since resident goose populations are continuing to grow.

                     Get 2009-10 waterfowl hunting dates in Kentucky here

    The mallard duck makes up a large percentage of the bag during duck season in Kentucky.

                                                                                 Photo courtesy of National Geographic

Posted June 18, 2010

By Art Lander Jr.

OutdoorsKentucky.Com

                       Kentucky’s Wood Duck and Teal Season

                           Remains Popular with Waterfowlers

    Every third Wednesday in September, Kentucky waterfowl hunters flock to the state’s wetlands and waterways for opening day of early wood duck and teal season.

    The five-day season, which will be held this year on September 15-19, has become especially popular in Central and Eastern Kentucky, where hunters are more likely to encounter wood ducks than teal.

    “Based on the sheer number of broods observed, it appears to be a good year for wood duck reproduction,” said Rocky Pritchert, migratory bird biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

    The season’s popularity has withstood the test of time. “On the most recent hunter survey 60 percent of our waterfowl hunters said they participated in the early season,” said Pritchert. “That’s about 13,000 to 15,000 hunters.”

    The wood duck (Aix sponsa) is a medium-sized duck, weighing about 1 ½ pounds, with adults measuring about 17 to 20 inches long. Broad, relatively short wings enable the “woodie” to made acrobatic twists and turns while flying through timber.

    Wood ducks are cavity nesters, raising their young in trees along creeks, rivers and wetlands. The average clutch size is 10 to 15 eggs.

    In the summer both sexes of wood ducks are in eclipse plumage, a drab grayish-brown coloration, but the adult male’s winter plumage is a magnificent blend of green, rust, yellow, black, and tan, accented with white.

    While the number of wood ducks taken during Kentucky’s early season has varied through the years, during the past decade, the harvest has averaged about 15,000 birds, Pritchert said.

    The early season has a four-bird daily bag limit, but no more than two birds may be wood ducks.

    While it’s a statewide season for both wood ducks and teal, the prospects of bagging teal are slim for many hunters. This is because teal are predominately found in the western one-third of Kentucky, as they migrate through the state, from their breeding grounds in Canada, to their wintering grounds in the southern US, Mexico, and Central America.

      So for most hunters it’s a season for locally produced wood ducks. “We’re not shooting birds produced in other states,” said Pritchert. “Ninety-six percent of the bands recovered from wood ducks taken during our early season, were from wood ducks banded here.”

    An annual brood survey, conducted on Kentucky rivers and streams each summer by the department’s wildlife division personnel, is used to monitor wood duck population trends.

    Pritchert said one major justification for the early season was that Kentucky raised a lot of wood ducks, but hunters were able to harvest relatively few of them.

    During the 2008 early season, for example, hunters took 27,500 wood ducks, but during the regular duck season, which opened in late November, the wood duck harvest dropped to just 9,000. “By the start of the regular duck season most of the woods ducks raised here are gone (having migrated southward),” said Pritchert. “The overall wood duck harvest is considerably higher in several other Mississippi Flyway states.”

    Today, only Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida have an early wood duck and teal season.

    “It was considered experimental when it began in 1981, but in 2002 the US Fish and Wildlife Service granted operational status to (accepted) the season in its present form,” said Pritchert. “This means as long as wood duck numbers remain stable, the season can continue.”