A HUGE STEP TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING RED-BREASTED GOOSE DISTRIBUTION AND MIGRATION
09.02.2013
On 8 February 2013 the team of the EU Life+ Project "Safe Ground for Redbreasts" – staff from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds – made the largest ever cannon-net catch of Red-breasted Geese – 93 birds! Tags have been fitted to the birds for a telemetry study to help understand how they use the Dobrudzha landscape – which fields they favour for feeding, how often they change their roost site etc. This is the second catch by the Project team – two birds were fitted with GPS loggers in January 2011, when one bird moved to Romania and back again.
This time, eleven adult males were fitted with tags. Nine E-OBS tags will reveal the local movements of the birds in the wintering grounds, especially the links between roosting and foraging sites. Two GPS satellite tags were also fitted to pin-point sites used during migration. The satellite tags are solar powered and can last for more than a year – with luck, they will reveal as yet unknown wintering sites in the east of the range when they return next winter.
Despite being the world’s most threatened goose, and occurring in Europe, this species has been relatively little-studied, even after its population crashed so dramatically last decade. The Life+ project will provide much-needed data and today’s catch is a significant step towards understanding the species’ movements and ecology better.
In turn, this will underpin key outputs of the project, including a planning tool to help local authorities to avoid developments that are potentially damaging to the geese, and an agri-environment scheme to provide sufficient feeding opportunity for the birds and at the same time reduce conflict with farmers.
Catching geese has occupied a large number of people and a large amount of time during the last three winters – until now, with little success. We were even beginning to doubt it was possible. Well done to the project field team!
On 8 February 2013 the team of the EU Life+ Project "Safe Ground for Redbreasts" – staff from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds – made the largest ever cannon-net catch of Red-breasted Geese – 93 birds! Tags have been fitted to the birds for a telemetry study to help understand how they use the Dobrudzha landscape – which fields they favour for feeding, how often they change their roost site etc. This is the second catch by the Project team – two birds were fitted with GPS loggers in January 2011, when one bird moved to Romania and back again.
