Ducks Unlimited Alaska Partners With USFS
Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest nonprofit association dedicated to preserving North America’s rapidly declining waterfowl habitats, including the Dusky Canada geese.
The Dusky Canada geese have suffered low population rates due to an earthquake that hit Alaska nearly 60 years ago. However, through various organizational partnerships and hunting laws, the existence of Dusky geese has a fighting chance.
Ducks Unlimited Alaska Regional Biologist Kelly Warren partnered with and accompanied biologists from the Alaska Department of Game and Fish and the US Forest Service (USFS) on the Copper River Delta near Cordova, Alaska, to collar and band over 600 Dusky Canada geese in July.
The terrain of the Dusky geese’s main breeding grounds was affected in 1964 by an 8.5 magnitude earthquake that lifted the Copper River Delta by up to 6 feet, altering nesting sites and making nests more vulnerable to predators like wolves, brown bears, and coyotes.
Other issues that Dusky geese face include an increase in other geese subspecies in the area and land use and development.
According to Warren, “The collars provide critical information including distribution, behavior, migration, longevity and more.“
Illegal Hunting of Dusky Canada Geese
As one of seven subspecies of Canada goose, the Dusky geese winters or migrates in the northwestern United States. The Willamette Valley, Southwest Washington, and Lower Columbia River feature a small population of dusky Canada geese (about 12,000 birds), necessitating speciļ¬c waterfowl management and hunting regulations.
Hunting Duskys is illegal even though other dark geese subspecies are permissible to hunt in some places. To distinguish a Dusky from other Canada goose subspecies, you can identify them by their medium size and dark chocolate brown chest contrasting slightly with their black neck.
Hunters need to pass a goose identification test to get a hunting permit. This is to avoid the increased risk of misidentification and illegal hunting of a Dusky Canada goose. So to identify a Dusky, hunters need to look out for the red and green Dusky neck collars.
Should you want to get involved and help with the conservation and management of Dusky Canada geese, take a photo of the collared Dusky and report it to Tasha DiMarzio of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at tasha.dimarzio@alaska.gov.
Ducks Unlimited Alaska
Ducks Unlimited’s primary mission is habitat conservation. They rely heavily on fundraising and hold more than 4,600 fundraising events a year as a volunteer-based organization. With their proud supporters of lawmakers and communities, they can ensure that the future of waterfowl hunting remains for generations to come while improving duck populations.
Ducks Unlimited Alaska has access to all Charity Safaris donation hunts, so all Ducks Unlimited Alaska fundraising banquets will be able to request a hunting donation through Charity Safaris. As a result, each local Ducks Unlimited banquet keeps 100% of the earnings, boosting the bottom line of each fundraising event tremendously. If you want to fill out a request for a hunting trip donation, click here.
