A Day in the Life – Goose Banding

For the Wapusk National Park Resource Conservation Team, no two days are ever the same. In one of the most remote national parks in Canada, these scientists work together, and with other institutions, to contribute to the ecological monitoring and overall understanding of this vast subarctic habitat, home to a diverse range of plants, animals and ecosystems.

Some days in the park can even be described as a wild-goose chase. Literally! As part of a monitoring the migratory geese of the region, Jesse Shirton, an Ecologist with the Wapusk Resource Conservation Team, worked with Mississippi Flyway – a collaborative group of wildlife management branches from Canadian provinces and U.S. states – to band these feathered fliers.

What's that goose wearing?

To keep tabs on and collect data from the geese, a metal band is clasped around the bird’s leg. This band has a unique identifier that helps researchers to learn about their migratory pathways, wintering grounds, and any changes to breeding sites. All this information, and more, are collected when hunters report the bands, or when a goose is recaptured by researchers.

However, before you band a goose, you must catch a goose. That’s where this day in the life begins!

Fieldwork fun

The day begins as the team takes flight for a helicopter ride from Churchill, Manitoba into the park. From this vantage point, researchers can take a gander at the geese and corral them into a single large group. On the ground, designated “goose herders” will start to herd the gaggle into a pre-posited net fence that they can swing closed to contain the birds.

Of course, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, so while handling the geese, the “goose banders” will determine if the specimen is a male or female, and if it’s an adult or gosling. This provides information on the demographics of the goose population in Wapusk, such as the ratio of males to females, the number of goslings, and survival rates year to year.

The banded geese are released in small batches, ensuring that they spend as little time as possible in the fence but without any being sent off on their lonesome.

“They’re birds; why don’t they just fly away?”, you may be wondering. After having their young, there is a short period where adult geese molt their flight feathers in order to have fresh ones for their upcoming fall migration. At the same time, the goslings are just growing in their first set of flight feathers, meaning there is a window of time when no geese can fly. A perfect time for goose banding!

A honking good time

On this day, the Wapusk Resource Conservation Team was able to assist Mississippi Flyway by being goose herders, note takers and providing polar bear monitors for safety, all while learning new skills and contributing to the conservation of a treasured place.

Of course, the next day may be totally different! They may find themselves visiting a fur-trade-era trading post, traversing one of Wapusk’s 10,000 thermokarst lakes or solving aquatic mysteries using eDNA.