Operation Dark Goose
Fred Dobler, Region 5 Wildlife Manager

Goose Management in Southwest Washington and Northwestern Oregon is one of the most complex waterfowl management scenarios in the nation. Our effort to protect the dusky Canada goose while still controlling crop damage, has led to a set of regulations that require hunters to discern between dusky geese and other subspecies that frequent Western Washington Goose Management Area 2. Each goose harvested is checked at a hunter check station, and mistakes cost the hunter his hunting privilege for the rest of the season, within Goose Management Area 2. To compound our protection effort, a small population of dark resident geese has become established in the Lower Columbia River and Willapa Bay. The WDFW estimates that there may be as many as 400 of these dark residents, and they appear similar to duskys and in fact cannot be separated from real duskys when measured at the harvest check stations, but they are not part of the Copper River Alaska dusky population.

For several years WDFW has tried to mark with white collars as many of these local dark geese as possible, with the hope that hunters may be able to differentiate between these birds and true duskys. If a hunter sees a goose with a white collar he can rest assured that it is a legal bird to harvest and is not a dusky. With this differential harvest we hope to stop the growth of the resident dark goose population. We have called this effort Operation Dark Goose.

In the past the WDFW has used boats and support crews to move geese into corral type goose traps. Geese at this time of year are flightless after molting their flight feathers, and can be herded across the water to predetermined areas for capture. This year we adopted a technique perfected in Alaska, using a helicopter to drive geese into the trap.

In late June of 2001, WDFW Wildlife staff, USFWS and several volunteers captured and banded 783 Canada geese in the lower Columbia River. Region 5 Biologist, Pat Miller, was the team leader and his leadership and coordination made this effort a success. To facilitate the capture this year, a Robinson R-22 helicopter from Hillsboro Aviation was used to drive the birds into a portable trap that was constructed on dredge spoil islands in the lower Columbia. The pilot’s skill contributed greatly to the success of the project. Once captured the birds were banded with a USFWS leg band. Mature birds were fitted with a white plastic numbered neck collar. Sixty-two geese were marked with neck collars. In addition approximately 50 goslings that were too small to wear a neck collar were leg banded for later recognition at the check station.

A notable occurrence at this year’s capture was 8 geese that wore neck collars indicating that they had been caught and released in California, and had since moved north to the lower Columbia River. These were probably molt migrants, birds that move north to migrate as non-breeding birds.

We are very pleased with the results of this year’s effort, and plan to do another capture later this July in Willapa Bay. The use of a helicopter is a great tool and allows the biologists to separate out target dark birds for capture while letting others go free. The geese were released back into the lower Columbia River and all were in very good condition.