Snow goose population expansion

Hello James McIntyre  

I scanned your 2012 post.  This is a lot of information, with the side links and all.  Honestly, I do not have time now to delve into it too deeply.  But I am most curious.  It is enough to quickly throw out a few questions for now.  

1.  What is the cause of the overpopulation of snow geese ?

2.  Another way of asking this is:  Why are snow geese populations higher than they "should" be (according to these biologists) ?

3.  Who came to the conclusion that the snow geese is "destroying" its breeding habitat ?  

I may be wrong, but I am not able to recall any past situation (over the last 40 years) where a native bird has "destroyed" its breeding habitat.  To my memory, this does not "click" with anything I have been taught, seen or heard about in 40 years of being involved with wildlife "management"  I place apostrophes around the word "management" because the truth is that native wildlife does not need management.   Well, should I say….it rarely needs man's intervention.  I believe E.J. alluded to that a few years ago during another snow goose discussion.    

My memory may be wrong, but I have never heard of a native bird "destroying" its nesting habitat due to over population or for any other reason.

4.  What were historic population numbers…….just roughly speaking ?

5.  Ok, it seems I am about to be humbled here.  I just wikied snow geese and see that the lesser population is continually expanding these years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_goose

6.  Again…….Why ?  

7.  BTW, I would increase the hunting take somehow, without including a Spring hunt.  We must uphold the MBTA….no matter what!

Robert King
itsaboutnature.net
- See more at: http://www.naturescapes.net/forums/view ... 1#p2357551

Here's a bit of info from the FWS:

https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/Curr ... S_Q&As.pdf

Here's more:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Wi ... -ecosystem

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/99-03.html

http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/es_map/a ... e_40.mhtml

There are plenty more sites if you Google "Snow Goose Destruction of Breeding Grounds":

https://www.google.com/search?q=Snow+Go ... 3&ie=UTF-8

Joe

In most systems, relationships among native species evolve over millennia….and much, much longer. That is why, historically, systems eventually reached relative stability…….that is, relative to what is happening to natural systems today! 

So, to see a lesser snow geese population continuing to expand, it raises the question: Why is this happening? 

Of course, we all can recall examples of systems becoming askew. And we all know that when this happens, overwhelmingly, it is most often due to man. 

Quick example: The Pacific old growth forest was very stable, until the rich men and the ones politically connected, broke every rule there was in order to try to satiate their greed. Now, the Spotted Owl is on the brink and the Barred Owl somehow becomes a nuisance species that "must" be destroyed. Give me a break ! So, let's look at things the way they are, instead of glossing them over to suit certain people or interests. 

Again, why is the snow geese pop expanding ? Apparently, in this case, there is a natural reason. What is it ? I sure do not know. Please tell me. Thanks 
Robert King
itsaboutnature.net
- See more at: http://www.naturescapes.net/forums/view ... 1#p2357551

SantaFeJoe wrote:Here's a bit of info from the FWS:

https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/Curr ... S_Q&As.pdf

Here's more:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Wi ... -ecosystem

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/99-03.html

Joe

Ok and thanks…I will have to look at it later.  I am definitely very interested.

Robert  

Sorry, Robert, that I posted a reply before you had a chance to transfer your comments to this forum first! I didn't mean to make it look like you hadn't read my reply first!

Joe

Like everything...look for details. Are Ross's Geese being included with Snow Geese (lesser and greater). Does Wrangell Island have oil to be exploited by the Russians? Different races have different breeding grounds and over hunting in the past may have left some populations more able to recover in certain areas that historically was a small part of their natural range.

SantaFeJoe wrote:Sorry, Robert, that I posted a reply before you had a chance to transfer your comments to this forum first! I didn't mean to make it look like you hadn't read my reply first!

Joe

I know Joe.  And thanks.  

Blck-shouldered Kite wrote:

SantaFeJoe wrote:Here's a bit of info from the FWS:

https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/Curr ... S_Q&As.pdf

Here's more:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Wi ... -ecosystem

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/99-03.html

Joe

Ok and thanks…I will have to look at it later.  I am definitely very interested.

Robert  

Just scanned the EIS and I now can see what has been causing the expansion and what they plan to do about it.  "So far, so good".  Very interesting.  Have to read more later.  Thanks.  

I am going to begin some research on the subject of snow geese, but for now I am going to stick my neck out and say that man messed up the balance of nature and caused whatever problem there is and now man has to spend time, money, energy in correcting the problems. So I won't like others come across as a know it all on the subject and leave it up to discovery...But it will be interesting to see if my completely unknowledgeable prediction is right...... emanating from the tried and true history of man's folly when it comes to nature.

Paul

As it turns out in fact, the snow goose "overpopulation" is a completely man made problem and the sole fault of human beings to not live with nature, but only for himself.

The reason there are too many snow geese has a very familiar source. It's because WE eat too much meat and consume too many animal products. Those grain fields are what's causing over feeding of the snow goose and therefore population explosions. Until we rid the food source causing the problem, we will be stuck with the snow goose "overpopulation".

I laugh at how wimpy the rationals are that these geese are apparently too difficult to hunt....

Harvest rates


for snow geese have not kept pace with population growth in past years. These


birds tend to be difficult to hunt, which leads many hunters to pursue other types of waterfowl


instead.


Poor guys ..I just feel for their hardships.....
Very sad as usual to see wildlife management turned over to the yahoos and weekend warriors. As  I was once told by Leonard La Rue one time: "a bullet is very cheap".


Paul

pleverington wrote:As it turns out in fact, the snow goose "overpopulation" is a completely man made problem and the sole fault of human beings to not live with nature, but only for himself.

The reason there are too many snow geese has a very familiar source. It's because WE eat too much meat and consume too many animal products. Those grain fields are what's causing over feeding of the snow goose and therefore population explosions. Until we rid the food source causing the problem, we will be stuck with the snow goose "overpopulation".

I laugh at how wimpy the rationals are that these geese are apparently too difficult to hunt....

Harvest rates for snow geese have not kept pace with population growth in past years. These birds tend to be difficult to hunt, which leads many hunters to pursue other types of waterfowl
instead.


Poor guys ..I just feel for their hardships.....
Very sad as usual to see wildlife management turned over to the yahoos and weekend warriors. As  I was once told by Leonard La Rue one time: "a bullet is very cheap".


Paul

OK,Paul, here we go again! I'm responding to the bold print underlined (bold print and underlining added to separate from rest of comments) statements.

In purple: What does it have to do with not living with nature, but only for ourselves???

In green: One of the primary grains is rice, with wheat in there as well. Those are not primarily used for animal feed. Yes, corn is a large factor no doubt. When you state that "we will be stuck with the snow goose "overpopulation" until we rid the food source causing the problem",   that is not a solution that will happen soon enough to be of any use to the habitat that is being lost rapidly. Tundra vegetation grows more slowly than the geese are depleting it!

In red: In the link I provided above (   http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Wi ... -ecosystem   ) it says that with the expanded hunting, 1-1.5 million geese were harvested and the damage to the tundra was stopped (not reversed). The Humane Society said that the "inconclusive results" were "evidence" that the increased hunting was "pointless and unnecessarily cruel". They said that it was "alarmist" to suggest that this was an ecosystem on the verge of collapse. There has been no catastrophe and that the habitat and tundra still exist! 

Sounds like major denial of a visible result of increased hunting to me. The statement by USFWS about snow geese being difficult to hunt is pure malarkey.

In blue: If you read in the link I provided from FWS (   http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/99-03.html   ) under 15+16, you will see how hunting is one of the most cost effective ways of reducing the population of snow geese. Non-lethal methods just move the geese from one area to another. Another method that was proposed was egg destruction and how many unhatched but partially formed goslings will be killed that way. Poisoning will render the meat unsafe for consumption and would probably be detrimental to other wildlife.
_________________________________


This is another discussion between you (Paul) and I (Joe) from earlier this year:


Quote:
 You (Paul) said:  "And why is it exactly that animals need culling and control in the first place? Why do we even have to manage them. Where's the responsibility in that?"...And just WHY are there too many snow geese Joe?

I (Joe) said: If the Snow Geese are being catered to by planting crops, making more refuges and places to protect them artificially, and the numbers are such that disease is taking them out, I fail to see your thoughts on the subject as being logical. Either they are controlled by disease (which may spread to other birds) or they need some other form of culling, like hunting. That has become the "responsibility", like it or not.

You (Paul) said:
 "Yeppers...it's either disease or it's hunters..right...take our pick..is that all there is to it Joe? How bout this one, we screwed up their habitat, their balance with other species and predators, their migrating routes, their food supply and sources, and just maybe that's the REAL problem here. What your suggesting with using hunting as a conservation tool is analogous to fixing a roof leak with the wifeys cooking pot. It's short sighted and at best a patch for a problem that who knows for how long we can maintain controlling. It takes money and man power to keep it up and if that runs out(think sequester) then what? Leave wildlife management up to the hunters?? Oh boy.... read up on the last time that  happened....
Here's a like it or not for you..yourself and others who support sport hunting are going to have to get along and join forces with all the bleeding heart liberal tree huggers you can if you even hope to have a chance to save the natural world." 


________________


So Paul, you ask why we even need to manage them and what the responsibility is in that. The tundra is being destroyed rapidly and the effects reach way beyond only snow geese. In that thread I asked you for your creative and effective solution to the problem if not hunting, which you so adamantly oppose. You offered no solution. And so, I am asking again, What solution do you offer for the problem that would be acceptable to conservationists, preservationists, farmers, wildlife managers and the saving of the tundra?  You said you were not opposed to some forms of hunting in that other thread. Is this a time you would oppose hunting, even though it seems to be the most effective method of controlling snow goose populations at this time? Certainly, you will not suggest to let nature take it's course with disease or uncontrolled increases in the population of snow geese. That would endanger many other forms of life, both plant and animal. The tundra will not recover for a long time, even if the destruction reaches equilibrium and starts to reverse the losses. Reducing the availability of grains (goose population increase being an unintended result of farming)  is not a reasonable solution in the near future, since a solution is direly needed now. What is your suggestion?


Joe

Here's my suggestion in the nutshell Joe....change your attitude.

Adopt a new philosophy that judiciously and pragmatically fits our times. Give way to the inconvenient truths that animals have every right to be here as much as we do. They were not created by some magical mythical being that made us special and them to be here only for us.

Another thought we all might start realizing is that this land is much less a country now and more a business..... This economic model is sweeping away nature slowly but surely. If it were not for the nature lovers we would have very little now.

I'll talk more later, but just to answer your question which by the way I didn't mean to duck, I was getting work overload had little time for the thread. Probably like yourself it takes a while to put things together and then type them for me.


Paul

Hey Joe, by the way, after hitting "reply with quote" at the bottom of my post say, go to "preview",  highlight a sentence from my post you want to respond to, hit the quote button at the top header, and then respond yourself under that quote box. Then highlight the next sentence or two you want to respond to or address and repeat steps. This will make it a lot easier on you and me and others too. And I know how funky the site program seems to be working with those colors. Seems like things happen for no reason and I can't find a way to figure them out..

Thanks for the suggestion on replying. It does get confusing with colors only.

Joe

SantaFeJoe wrote:Thanks for the suggestion on replying. It does get confusing with colors only.

Joe

I like the use of colors-- i feel they could be very useful, but the frustration when using them and how I can't find a way to correct things once I have put so much time into it is too over the top aggravating. I'm not doubting it could be my own lack in these areas, but just using the quotes does well enough most times. Might be some site program problems, I don't know...

The reasons for too many snow geese:
1) We eliminated their coastal winter wetlands adjacent to the gulf of Mexico so the made a move inland where they found endless grain feed.
2) They are being closed out of most refuges. (pushed IOW to the farmers fields once again).
3) We don't kill them enough. (Oh brother...here we go again).
4) Climate warming.
5) Longer lives. (Due to overfeeding them)

Now these are taken directly from the fws link you provided. As you can see humans are the problem not the geese. I advocate long term solutions over short term grab the gun ones. After all you wouldn't fix a roof leak with a bucket would you? You would wind up with a house full of buckets and still the roof would fall down on your head someday. Same thing will happen with nature. Bullets are not a solution...they are damage control. The powers that make money though lobby to keep the whole sick machine going. Part of my argument is that a short term temporary action should not take the place of a long term stable solution.

Reading further down in the FWS report that the only solution they are contemplating are bullets and they admit freely it all boils down to the money. The whole stupid cycle is insane. We basically are selling out our wildlife as the real solutions are much too inconvenient. This is the truth everyone knows and admits to....

Like most all other ecological problems only when the matter culminates in catastrophe will we then take the drastic actions necessary. It's too often like that.

We could use a president the likes of Theodore Roosevelt right now. I had a thread or was part of one where we discussed him at length. Point was Ol Teddy himself did very little on his own, but as president he embraced the tree huggers and listened intently to them. Even formed an anti hunting committee to ferret out what to do and he actually did what they said. He saw the handwriting on the wall. Commercialization, loss of habitat, and over hunting had to be stopped. Most places he saved he had never even been too. But as president, the power of the pen was mighty. He listened to those he knew were involved and knowledgeable and most likely correct about areas to be saved they knew. We really do need a environmental and wildlife minded leader at this point to make the changes necessary to reflect the newer problems we are now dealing with.


Just got done with your second link Joe and it basically is saying hunting the numbers down is not working. It's not a surprise just as hunting down deer does not work. In fact in their case their numbers increase the more you thin the crowd. Culling is not a solution, it satisfies the hunters and all those enterprises that make money from the endeavor and it makes it look as if someone is doing something, but no solution. We should be banging drums waking people up to what the real problem is and that's way,way, too many grain fields. We pay farmers to grow and surplus grain. To leave it in the fields. That should stop. From the link::

"More farming has meant more geese, and more geese mean more pressure on a delicate northern ecosystem. The fact that humans are indirectly responsible for the destruction bolstered the argument that humans should correct the problem.

“We’re manipulating nature at many different levels,” says Mr. Abraham. It’s irresponsible “to stand back and say, because it’s far away, we should let nature take its course.”"

One thing for sure Joe...You and I care. Most of the general public has no idea even what a snow goose even is. This lack of awareness is a fundamental problem.

And I think that as long as we look to the bullet as an option we will just keep sliding down that slippery slope. It's like the problem all of a sudden is out of sight therefore out of mind. All is good! Till the problem returns even worse than before. Then what.... get the machine guns?? Or those twelve barrel shot guns they used to use for the canvas back ducks?? Right now they are terrified to push to have the blood of the millions of animals that would need to be slaughtered to "fix" the problem as they know that's when people are going to really pay attention and the hunting thing will take a huge punch to the stomach with the bad publicity.

By the way the grain planted acres in the US....( X millions of acres):

Corn (grain)
84
Soybeans
73.8
Hay
55.7
Wheat
45.7
Cotton
9.5
Sorghum (grain)
3.9
Rice
2.6

To put light on how we all might alleviate the loss of habitat and alteration of habitat due to over intensified land use for the production of corn one might want to look over what all the corn is used for and where it goes:

Corn: The United States is, by far, the largest producer of corn in the world, producing 32 percent of the world's corn crop in the early 2010s.  Corn is grown on over 400,000 U.S. farms. The U.S. exports about 20 percent of the U.S. farmer's corn production. Corn grown for grain accounts for almost one quarter of the harvested crop acres in this country. Corn grown for silage accounts for about two percent of the total harvested cropland or about 6 million acres. The amount of land dedicated to corn silage production varies based on growing conditions. In years that produce weather unfavorable to high corn grain yields, corn can be "salvaged" by harvesting the entire plant as silage. Additionally, corn farming has become exponentially more efficient. If U.S. farmers in 1931 wanted to equivalently yield the same amount of corn as farmers in 2008, the 1931 farmers would need an additional 490 million acres!

According to the National Corn Growers Association, about eighty percent of all corn grown in the U.S. is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and fish production. The National Corn Growers Association also reports that each American consumes 25 pounds of corn annually. The crop is fed as ground grain, silage, high-moisture, and high-oil corn. About 12% of the U.S. corn crop ends up in foods that are either consumed directly (e.g. corn chips) or indirectly (e.g. high fructose corn syrup). Corn has a wide array of industrial uses including ethanol, a popular oxygenate in cleaner burning auto fuels.  In addition many household products contain corn,  including paints, candles, fireworks, drywall, sandpaper, dyes, crayons, shoe polish, antibiotics, and adhesives.



Act accordingly, set a good example, spread the word, speak out on the net, and elect the right minded people for your causes...


Paul

From this very detailed and in depth report on the problem:

http://fwf.ag.utk.edu/mgray/wfs560/SnowGeese.pdf

"Not surprisingly, spilled corn is one of the primary food sources of lesser snow
geese" (Alisauskaset al., 1988; Alisauskas & Ankney,1992; Krapuet al., 2004).

Maybe a lot of the problem is just being to sloppy with farming practices?

Paul

pleverington wrote:

3) We don't kill them enough. (Oh brother...here we go again).

Even in the article you provided a link to, it says that increased hunting stabilized the situation under the paragraph "The Mid-continent Population of lesser snow geese".

 I advocate long term solutions over short term grab the gun ones. After all you wouldn't fix a roof leak with a bucket would you? You would wind up with a house full of buckets and still the roof would fall down on your head someday. Same thing will happen with nature. Bullets are not a solution...they are damage control. The powers that make money though lobby to keep the whole sick machine going. Part of my argument is that a short term temporary action should not take the place of a long term stable solution.

Something has to be done quickly and then long-term solutions can come into play. Damage control is exactly what is needed!  The tundra cannot wait. I have heard that it takes much tundra vegetation a year to grow an inch. It takes a snow goose a half second to eat it! Do you have any short term solutions to tide us over?????

Like most all other ecological problems only when the matter culminates in catastrophe will we then take the drastic actions necessary. It's too often like that.

That's where we're at now. That is why we need a quick solution before a long-term one. No different than climate change!!!

We could use a president the likes of Theodore Roosevelt right now. I had a thread or was part of one where we discussed him at length. Point was Ol Teddy himself did very little on his own, but as president he embraced the tree huggers and listened intently to them. Even formed an anti hunting committee to ferret out what to do and he actually did what they said. He saw the handwriting on the wall. Commercialization, loss of habitat, and over hunting had to be stopped. Most places he saved he had never even been too. But as president, the power of the pen was mighty. He listened to those he knew were involved and knowledgeable and most likely correct about areas to be saved they knew. We really do need a environmental and wildlife minded leader at this point to make the changes necessary to reflect the newer problems we are now dealing with.

He was also a hunter many people did not respect because of things he killed! He was a ruthless hunter, in my opinion! There was something in this forum recently about buffalo killing and starving out the Indians, but I can't locate it quickly. Here is one of his quotes regarding the Sand Creek massacre:
"a righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." And another on Native Americans: "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe 9 out of 10 are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth".

I'm not impressed with many of his ways.

Just got done with your second link Joe and it basically is saying hunting the numbers down is not working. It's not a surprise just as hunting down deer does not work. In fact in their case their numbers increase the more you thin the crowd. Culling is not a solution, it satisfies the hunters and all those enterprises that make money from the endeavor and it makes it look as if someone is doing something, but no solution.

That is wrong information from the Humane Society, as I stated above in my prior reply. The fact that further loss of tundra was stopped after an increase in the number of geese harvested should be seen as an indicator of increased hunting pressure helping the problem. The Humane Society cited this as "evidence that increased hunting was pointless and unnecessarily cruel", as I said above in my prior reply, because the tundra was not improving! The degradation was stopped and an equilibrium reached. If more geese were taken by hunting, an improvement would probably be seen.

“We’re manipulating nature at many different levels,” says Mr. Abraham. It’s irresponsible “to stand back and say, because it’s far away, we should let nature take its course.”"

And yet, that is exactly what the Humane Society is saying , as I stated above! John Gandy, senior vice-president for wildlife with the Gaithersburg, MD Humane Society, said "There hasn't been a catastrophe. The habitat still exists. The Arctic still exists". He also said that it is alarmist to suggest that this is an ecosystem on the verge of collapse.

One thing for sure Joe...You and I care. Most of the general public has no idea even what a snow goose even is. This lack of awareness is a fundamental problem.

Agreed!

And I think that as long as we look to the bullet as an option we will just keep sliding down that slippery slope. It's like the problem all of a sudden is out of sight therefore out of mind. All is good! Till the problem returns even worse than before.  Right now they are terrified to push to have the blood of the millions of animals that would need to be slaughtered to "fix" the problem as they know that's when people are going to really pay attention and the hunting thing will take a huge punch to the stomach with the bad publicity.

What do you suggest??? It is the only solution that seems to be working on any visible level! As you say, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind to the ones who lack awareness of the problem. The fact that unknowledgeable persons don't see the problem with the geese, but see a problem with hunting as a solution to overpopulation is what the USFWS has to deal with. They (the opposers of hunting as a solution) cannot come up with real alternatives that will take care of the problem in the short run. Remember that it takes a long time for tundra to recover, but only a short time to destroy it. My question to you is still "What do you propose as as short term or interim solution to the problem at hand in the present and not way down the road when it may be too late???" A solution needs to be found urgently!!!

In the link you provided, I found it interesting that the total land area planted with corn and wheat has not changed much in the last 50 years, but the land planted with rice and soy has increased a lot. Soy is not a factor, though, in the snow goose situation. Fertilizers and, possibly, GM corn may account for the better production. Figure 2 on page 844 shows a dramatic increase in production of both rice and corn.

Joe

And for those of you who think that nature should take it's course when a problem was created by man's hand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia


https://www.google.com/search?q=Austral ... d=0CDoQ7Ak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia

http://www.discovermoab.com/tamarisk.htm

The latter being a major problem at Bosque del Apache.

I think I'm getting the hang of the boxes.

Joe

I'm having a big chuckle with that the entire Australian rabbit problem because it was caused by a hunter. From the wiki link you provided:

The current infestation appears to have originated with the release of 24 wild rabbits[4] by Thomas Austin for hunting purposes in October 1859, on his property, Barwon Park, near Winchelsea, Victoria. While living in England, Austin had been an avid hunter, regularly dedicating his weekends to rabbit shooting. Upon arriving in Australia, which had no native rabbit population, Austin asked his nephew William Austin in England to send him twelve grey rabbits, five hares, seventy-two partridges and some sparrows so he could continue his hobby in Australia by creating a local population of the species. William could not source enough grey rabbits to meet his uncle's order, so he topped it up by buying domestic rabbits. One theory as to why the Barwon park rabbits adapted so well to Australia is that the hybrid rabbits that resulted from the interbreeding of the two distinct types were particularly hardy and vigorous. Many other farms released their rabbits into the wild after Austin.

Hunters have never actually been real environmentalists.Yes they do that work, but inevitably it's for another purpose other than environmentalism. That's a generalization of course and we'll sleep with the enemy if we can win the war.

Animals reproduce more if there are favorable conditions. I read this many times for many species.  With snow Geese apparently they were chased out of their traditional wetlands which by nature of a finite food supply kept their numbers in check. Now however they have discovered serendipitously that there are these fields with a cornucopia of food. So we could start by restoration of their traditional wetlands. Then we could clean up sloppy farming practices that leave grain waste spilled out all over the place. We could then look at changing what gets planted and where, either temporary or semi to permanently. Planting soy instead of corn for a while for example. The farmer still has a crop, but it is a different one. Or other crop plants... If the farmer needs financial help to balance his income then that is what he should receive. If Bosque stopped planting corn wouldn't the geese leave and not come back? If we then kept up the pressure to funnel the geese back to their original homelands by denying them the corn and others feed fields they will begin to once more self regulate.

The rationale to just throw bullets at them in some far and away place and no one really has a clue there was a problem in the first place or that a mass killing took place to solve it for a year or two will only serve to perpetuate the problem and in fact make it worse. Like climate warming just cause we see a cold winter or two here and there does not mean the earth is not heating up. Different unrelated problem I know by it makes the point temporary relieve does now cure the cancer.

The thing to do is change. Start with yourself.  Put some artificial snow geese in your front yard, place a large snow goose magnetic sign on your car, buy a billboard, get a snow goose monogrammed hat or jacket, get a horn for your car that gives the snow goose call instead of beep-beep, maybe you could get a goose that was injured and keep it for education purposes. Use some imagination...Point is get people involved. Your the catalyst. A springboard to start a chain reaction that will get people aware there is a problemwith the snow geese and then and therefore a problem with a lot of other things that caused the snow goose problem.

As I pointed out about the corn....how many people have any idea that 67% of our crops go to feed animals and 3% of our crops grow vegetables for us?? No one but a few in the general public sector. I think people care a lot about nature, but they don't know, and are not aware of what the problems are. Yes we have documentaries and the internet, but I am going to argue that nothing takes the place or has the impact of mono on mono...face to face...seeing how wonderful and beautiful a snow goose really is...and respecting that.

But as long as we keep doing the culling bs and buying into the false philosophies we are doomed down the road. It will just keep catching more and more up to us. Your a hunter and have been out there and now you photograph. Surely there's some powerful dialogue you can call upon to influence people.

By the way, aren't Canada geese capable of affecting the snow geese? They don't really mix it up do they? Perhaps putting them on station might be of some value... just a wild thought there..

Paul

He was also a hunter many people did not respect because of things he killed! He was a ruthless hunter, in my opinion! There was something in this forum recently about buffalo killing and starving out the Indians, but I can't locate it quickly. Here is one of his quotes regarding the Sand Creek massacre:


"a righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." And another on Native Americans: "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe 9 out of 10 are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth".





I'm not impressed with many of his ways.



I wanted to just add something here. We ook at such statements NOW as being way out of line. In fact they are as well as his big game slaughter hunts in Africa but that is now. Back then there was huge copious ammounts of everything. The PHILOSOPHIES were different. We all had to change those philosophies as time went by. We are constantly faced with doing this to fit the times. And this a a big point...we can't live now and do things now as we did in the sixties. We have a infinite better knowledge of wildlife and nature, there are more of us, we have urbanized and taken over land to support that urbanization more than ever before, we have climate change, we have water shortages, we have species going extinct, we have cultures disappearing, we live longer....etc...all these things change what our laws should be and what our philosophies should be. We must change now  to fit the situation.

This is one of the reasons I have a big problem with sport hunting because a large portion of it is the delusion that the hunter has of etting back to tradition and the circle of life buzz.. All that is gone. It's gone. We can't get back millions of bison on the plains or billions of passenger pigeons in the air or endless beaver and otter pelts. It's all a fantasy that is perpetuated by the support team for the hunter and that is the industry behind everything pulling the strings. Hunters are the victims of the system every bit as much as all the rest of us are with our cheeseburgers, weekend warrior bar hopping, kid cars, reality show, frito stuffing, thump-thump mind numbing ear assaults. It's all about buying into false beliefs because of advertising and everyone's desire for more..It happened many times before in history that people got fed up and rebelled as they did with the back to the earth movement of the 60's and70's. Well we need one now...

But I encounter hunters often wearing the Teddy badge as if he isone of their own, as if the fact he hunted was why we have our parks and such, but just a superficial research on google will get one's understanding up that in fact a very dedicated group of people all over the united states who didn't even know each other but who were wanting so bad to preserve their own places were the true hero's. Teddy's best legacy is that he let the tree hugging liberals do their thing as he knew they were right.

Back then 150 years ago everyone thought a lot different. Go back 250 years ago nobody could have imagined what we live  with today.

Thanks for listening...


Paul