Goose hunting season in Colorado getting better

Goose hunting season in Colorado getting better

December 27, 2001

BY THE COLORADO DIVISION OF WILDLIFE

DENVER — Hunters have a better chance to harvest a goose for New Year’s Day dinner thanks to the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s goose management efforts. In order to curb the growing population of Canada geese, the DOW is creating more hunting opportunities.

"Colorado is a great place to hunt geese," said Jim Gammonley, an avian researcher for the DOW. "We are doing what we can to encourage the harvest of Canada geese to slow the growth rate of their populations."

It may be hard to believe now, but there was once a time when Canada geese were rare in Colorado. Before the 1950s, there were only a few hundred resident birds in the northwest part of the state. Now there are more than 20,000 Canada geese that reside in Colorado. During the winter migration, there can be as many as 250,000 birds present.

"We have breeding birds in almost every part of the state," Gammonley said. "The birds provide a resource for recreational opportunity."

The division encourages goose hunting by closing certain reservoirs and creating "roost safe" spots, said Gammonley. From the roosting areas, geese fly into open fields where they can be hunted.

Goose hunters in Colorado are quite successful. Hunters have taken an average of 90,000 birds each year in the past decade.

In urban areas, where hunting is not permitted, the DOW has in the past rounded up goslings and shipped them to other parts of the state or outlying states where wildlife officials were trying to establish populations. But now, most goose habitat is full and such operations have ceased. Today, people in urban areas who want to control the number of geese can obtain a permit from the division to destroy eggs. However, no active removal or killing of the birds is allowed by the DOW at this time.

There is no historical evidence that Canada geese have ever lived in large numbers in Colorado. Biologists believe that agricultural development, particularly the digging of hundreds of reservoirs, and the establishment of new goose populations over the last century have led to their abundance today.

During the 1950s, the DOW led efforts to establish goose populations in North Park, the San Luis Valley and along the Front Range. Now Canada geese are present in almost every part of the state.

"Obviously they were successful. No one saw the down side then," said Gammonley. "We’ve had a number of places where the new populations have been so successful, especially in urban areas, that geese are causing damage on agricultural lands. So now we’ve come full circle."

The increase in agricultural development in the last century has also led to more geese because farms and reservoirs provide a wealth of food sources for the birds.

"They have everything that they need," said Gammonley. "The birds wouldn’t stay unless there was food and water, and Colorado has lots of that with its large reservoirs and agricultural lands."

There are three populations of Canada geese found in Colorado: The Rocky Mountain population breeds in northwestern Colorado and is found on the Western Slope during migration and winter. The larger Hi-Line group nests in the intermountain valleys, along the Front Range and in the South Platte River corridor. The latter group migrates and winters throughout eastern Colorado. The smaller Short-grass Prairie birds breed in the Canadian Arctic and migrate through Colorado, with some birds remaining through the winter.

In recent years, more than 250,000 Canada geese have been counted in Colorado during late-winter surveys. That includes about 10,000 Rocky Mountain and about 60,000 Short-grass Prairie geese, with the remainder from the Hi-Line population.