Waterfowl hunting opened Sept. 1, while archery deer hunters started a few days earlier. Now though, with most harvest wrapping up, farmers who celebrate the end of the growing season with a well-earned hunting trip can start to join in.

Bird hunting is in full swing, while muzzle loader and rifle deer hunters are anticipating their seasons not far down the road. A full list of season dates can be found in Manitoba’s 2025 hunting guide, available online through the Government of Manitoba’s Natural Resources and Indigenous Futures department.

There are some highs and lows expected this year, depending on your game of choice.

Ducks and geese decline

Spring waterfowl and wetland surveys run by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service flagged ongoing declines for most waterfowl and their habitat base. Some birds that would normally nest in the pothole region seemed to shift to northern forest wetlands. When this occurs, those birds mostly take a pass on nesting.

One survey participant I talked to also noted generally poor wetland conditions. Lower than average breeding success was expected.

It wasn’t a surprise, therefore, when late summer duck banding programs in southern Manitoba struggled to achieve their targets. There were few ducks around. Furthermore, low numbers of young birds pointed to a relatively poor hatch.

It was a feat to ensure that these surveys, which have run continuously since the 1950s, occurred at all. Major government cutbacks hit the U.S. initiative, considered to be the gold standard for wildlife population monitoring. Experienced staff were lost, but the remaining dedicated and innovative folks found ways to get the work done — for this year at least. On the Canadian side, hiring freezes are also thinning the ranks of capable individuals. All told, one of the world’s best wildlife surveys is on thin ice.

Long-term breeding ground studies across the north provide estimates of Arctic goose production. Northern breeding and moulting areas such as Hudson Bay and southern Baffin Island — the source of most snow geese that migrate through southern Manitoba — had another bust production year. However, breeding success for northern Canada and Ross’s geese was closer to average.

Interestingly, spring surveys in the south are tracking declines in locally breeding Canada geese, which started just a few seasons ago. Band returns show that these birds are not being overharvested. One waterfowl biologist suggested to me that the recent dry years may have affected breeding success.

Even with this decline however, geese remain well above long-term averages, and so goose numbers and hunting opportunities will abound this fall.

Hunters I talked to had variable experiences during the opening week of the season. Long-time Delta Marsh hunters reported the lowest duck numbers seen in recent memory, despite excellent wetland conditions. Reports from western Manitoba were more promising. By the second week of the season, flights of field-bound mallards and pintails were providing earlier than normal field hunts.

Concentrations of blue-winged teal were impressive in a few areas — my son and I found good numbers on a shallow lake in central Manitoba — but it seems that many pulled out after the first cold spell a few days after the September long weekend. Species like mallard, gadwall, pintail and shoveler were generally scarce in central areas, but were reported to be building up further west. Perhaps the birds that migrated further north this spring are now starting to show up in some areas.

In contrast to ducks, the build-up of geese seems to have started early. Reports of early September field hunts have come in from across the province.

Grouse elusive

Winter conditions generally have little impact on our native grouse, but wet springs and early summers can hurt breeding success. Since we were on the dry side through that period, I had been hopeful that grouse opportunities would improve significantly.

However, early season reports have been a little disappointing. Friends who hunt in the southwest reported good sharp-tail numbers, but few Hungarian partridge so far, while reports from the Interlake ranged from below to above last year’s numbers.

It’s hard to make confident predictions about ruffed grouse before the leaves have fallen, but those I talked to had seen relatively few grouse broods in late summer. In early September, I went for a long walk for mushrooms in one of my favourite Whiteshell ruffed grouse haunts. I came back with a big haul of ‘lobster’ and ‘hedgehog’ mushrooms, but no grouse were flushed.

I will cling to the hope of better reports as the season rolls along.

Deer numbers similar to last year

Year over year, deer are affected by winter severity more than any other single factor. Wildlife managers use an index of severity that takes into account the length of time deeper snows stick around and the number of cold days.

Provincial wildlife staff told me that deer experienced an average winter, more or less, and fawn sightings in many areas have been encouraging. That said, some parts of the province delivered a more difficult winter. I have heard reports from archery hunters of fewer deer in some southwestern locales. The Duck Mountains and Riding Mountain National Park areas experienced deep snows, so deer numbers likely took a hit.

Overall though, the province kept deer harvest regulations pretty much unchanged from last year. Hunters can take any white-tailed deer in the archery, muzzle loader or general deer seasons. Up to two additional tags are available for antlerless deer in certain Game Hunting Areas.

Mule deer opportunities continue this fall, along with licence fees at bargain-basement prices, part of the province’s strategy against chronic wasting disease (CWD). Consult the 2025 hunting guide to find the specifics for your hunting areas.

There are a few ways big game hunters can help provincial wildlife management. One is to go to the online provincial licensing portal and complete a short volunteer hunter survey after the season. It asks questions like “Did you see fewer, more, or about the same number of deer as you did last year?” These paint a detailed picture when the views of hundreds or thousands of hunters are analyzed and can affect future management decisions.

Hunters can be tight lipped when it comes to information sharing, and it seems to me that Manitoba hunters are particularly so. Volunteer hunter surveys in other jurisdictions will get upwards of 30 per cent participation. Here, it struggles to reach five per cent. Hunters like to gripe when we believe that not enough is being done to manage our wildlife, yet here’s a simple way for hunters to make a unique contribution, and it’s mostly ignored. I don’t get it.

Chronic wasting disease in 2025

The good news from last year’s CWD sampling program was that only three white-tailed deer and one mule deer tested positive from over 3,000 samples. The positives came from close to the western and southwestern border areas. This points to a still modest spread of CWD, which is gratifying.

The main reason why mule deer get extra attention on this issue is because they seem to be more susceptible to CWD and are also more nomadic. The province therefore encourages a high harvest.

CWD testing is the second way big game hunters can make a critical contribution to management decisions. As one wildlife branch staffer put it, “Licensed hunters are the No. 1 ally in the fight against CWD.”

If you take an animal in the CWD surveillance zone (see the hunting guide), or suspect that your animal may be afflicted, submit a sample to one of the many depots listed on the province’s CWD website. You’ll get a free hat or toque for your efforts. More importantly, you’ll have the comfort of knowing whether your animal has CWD.

Hunter participation is surprisingly low, and it has been declining. That’s too bad, because hunters need to be vigilant on the CWD front. In other jurisdictions where CWD is well established, deer numbers are in steady decline.

Moose and elk

Normally any discussion of moose and elk seasons at this time is a bit of a yawn. Seasons and licenses have been set months in advance. In the last two years though, moose and elk seasons have had their share of drama.

This summer, the province announced an extra allocation of 250 moose tags in response to results from moose surveys in sections of the province.

That was offset by cuts to moose tags in northern Manitoba in the summer of 2024, shortly before the season opening. That followed demands by northern Indigenous communities to stop the hunt, but did not involve consultations with the Manitoba Wildlife Federation (MWF), whose membership includes significant numbers of licensed hunters.

The unprecedented provincial action led to an unprecedented response by MWF. It initiated a legal challenge against the government in provincial court. That case was heard late last fall, and a ruling is pending.

This year, the province closed parts of Game Hunting Areas 9A and 10 to licensed moose hunters. Again, hunting groups were not involved in consultations.

Another big issue in early September was the Bloodvein First Nation’s road blockade and intention to turn away licensed moose hunters on the east side Lake Winnipeg access road that runs through their reserve.

Late in the afternoon of the first day of the licensed hunting season, the province announced it was banning licensed hunters from zones around the Rice Lake Road and along a large area of the Bloodvein River. It’s difficult to how the province’s closures to licensed hunters this year will not set a precedent.

Some better news for hunters arrived with last-minute changes for elk tag recipients for Game Hunting Areas 29, 29A and 30. The limit, which was one bull elk, has been expanded to any elk. Elk numbers in these agricultural areas are growing, and the province has responded with this additional opportunity.

Heading afield

The mixed bag of hunting opportunities this fall is what we would expect almost every year, but this year, there is an additional layer of socio-political considerations that we have not seen before in Manitoba. My fingers are crossed for far-sighted leadership and equitable outcomes.

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I hadn’t shot that 12-gauge enough to be really confident with it. It didn’t help that I had neglected the skeet range earlier. But now the shot was called. I sat up and shouldered the gun as the bird swung right.

Instead of following the cardinal wing-shooting rule — swing through the bird and shoot without thinking about it — I swung, but then worried that the gun wasn’t shouldered properly. I swung some more, and thought some more. The bird was getting behind me; the shot was just getting harder.

Finally, I hit the trigger. A thump on the ground soon followed. As I walked over to pick up my bird, the boys couldn’t resist a few shots of their own.

“Sopuck, stop grandstanding. Just shoot!” Rob Olson teased.

It was a rare privilege to be the guest of Olson and Warren Bernhardt on that September hunt. I’ve known and worked with the former for decades and this hunt was my chance to get to know the latter. They come with a deep well of experience, have the gear and they did all the critical preparatory work. I was joining a ready-made hunt.

We set up early in the afternoon, placing about a hundred decoys and putting up thatched layout blinds. Tasks completed, we relaxed, chatted and anticipated the evening flight.

Olson predicted that we would see hundreds of geese working the general area and, like so much else about the hunt, he was spot on. After the first few flights and some decent shooting, we saw that the set-up was working. We dialed back the adrenaline a bit — a hard thing to do, as any hunter knows — and savoured the evening.

So often, the best hunting plans are upset by a wind change or birds that suddenly decide to hit a different field. Not this time. About 30 minutes before sunset, Olson confirmed that we had just taken our limit. It was time to pack up, reflect on this special experience and clean 24 birds.

Field hunting Canada geese the ‘Olson Way’

Olson is one of the finest hunters I know, and this is especially true for waterfowl. Raised in an extended family of passionate waterfowlers, he entered the waterfowl conservation world after graduate school. His boundless energy, passion and strategic mind took him to senior management roles at the Delta Waterfowl Foundation. He also served as the director of wildlife and deputy minister in what, at the time, was Manitoba’s Department of Sustainable Development.

These days, he’s a semi-retired wildlife consultant who finds ways to keep work from conflicting with a busy hunting schedule.

My goose hunting usually takes place in marshes. I haven’t invested in a big spread of field decoys. These days though, I have more time for scouting and there is great field hunting just beyond Winnipeg’s Perimeter Highway.

If I’m going to plunge into field hunting, picking Olson’s brain was the place to start.

Finding and accessing fields

Olson’s scouting trips begin at sunrise. He’ll start not too far away from overnight roost locations and follows goose flights out to their feeding sites. If a feeding concentration looks promising — large numbers of birds that look like they haven’t been disturbed for a while — the critical next step is finding the landowners.

If Olson doesn’t know the area, he’ll start by driving to the nearest house, ideally a farmyard, and ask politely about who owns the land.

“This is the time to overcome any inherent shyness to talk to strangers,” said Olson. “If you haven’t had much experience here, you’ll be shocked by how nice farmers are.”

If the first folks you talk to aren’t the owners, they likely know who they are and will probably supply a phone number or yard location.

Olson also has the iHunter app, which he finds invaluable. It includes options to purchase landownership maps for a small fee. He can keep notes on a given parcel and drop a geo-referenced pin that can be helpful when looking for a field entrance in the dark.

Ask about the landowner’s rules. These may include hunting a good distance from dwellings, a moratorium on early morning shooting or asking that no trucks go on the field.

Ask if permission has been given to anyone else at the time you wish to hunt. Sharing a field with another party never works out.

Field hunt set-up

Geese feed once in the morning and again in the evening. I’ve been a morning hunt guy, but Olson leaned to evenings, pointing out that we’d be watching and shooting away from the sun, not into it like we would in the morning.

We were also in a fairly populated area, where neighbouring landowners are far more accepting of supper-time gunshots than at dawn.

Decoys

Olson uses a mix of full-body, shell and silhouette (two-dimensional) decoys. His spread of about 100 decoys is laid out in wide U-shape, with the flanks trailing downwind. Like airplanes, geese land and take off into the wind. They also prefer to land in an opening, rather than stacking in with other birds. Set the blinds in the decoys, facing the downwind opening, which should be in good gun range.

Olson uses layout blinds, sometimes called coffin blinds, which are built to keep hunters concealed and low to the ground but that also have some back and head support.

Olson insisted that we add a good layer of thatch to our blinds. “Our success will be directly proportional to the amount of straw we weave onto our layout blinds,” he said as we were setting up.

I kept adding straw into the sewn-in loops until my blind looked like a low straw pile that the combine had dropped.

Think about the most probable flight path into the decoys and orient each hunter’s blind to maximize their ability to swing their shotgun on birds.

I’m left-handed, so my most effective swing is to the right. Olson placed me on the right side, with my blind angled a little to the left, maximizing my swing range.

Hunting magazines and websites have a bias towards big, expensive decoy spreads. Olson believes that good concealment in the right field is more important. “Two dozen decoys will often do the job,” he said. “Add more to your inventory if you decide to get more serious.”

Calling for geese

Hunting with Olson and Bernhardt was like attending a goose-calling master class. Their Judas honks, chuckles and other goose talk impressed me, and the birds weren’t shying away either.

Olson offers up three tips for beginners:

1) Buy a “goose flute” style of call. It’s the easiest to use.

2) Watch YouTube videos to learn a range of calls.

3) Practice in the car when you’re alone on long drives.

That last one sounds silly, but think about it: Where else can you practice and not drive other people crazy?

Beginners can focus on two basic calls: the standard honking call and excited chuckle calls. I have a habit of putting down the call as the birds start to get close, but Olson advises against that. “When geese are alarmed, they go silent just before they take flight. Continuing to call as they come in is reassuring,” he said.

When I asked about the importance of being a good caller, his view is that it’s more important to call than not. “The range of noises that geese make is quite remarkable, so don’t assume that they’ll flare because your calling is off.”

Flagging birds down

Olson is a big believer in goose flags, pole-mounted pieces of dark fabric cut to mimic the outline of a flying goose. Start with the flag above your head and flap it as you lower it to the ground, roughly simulating a landing goose. Olson starts when the geese are distant, mainly to get their attention, and keeps it up until the birds have committed, but are still out of range.

The final approach

Lots can happen in the final 100 metres that will make the difference between rising for a in-range shot or watching geese flare off at 75 metres. Olson’s checklist includes keeping still and staying concealed, especially your face. Wearing a camouflage face cover or keeping it under the blind cover is crucial.

Before the hunt starts, the group should pick one person to decide when to shoot. It’s a thankless task, because you’re going to get it wrong sometimes. Judging distance while peeking from behind cover is hard. Olson sets up a lone, marker decoy 35 yards (32 metres) downwind from his blind to help judge distance. The most common mistake is to call the shot too soon, but if you wait too long, you may be shooting at birds that are already flying past you.

Olson always has a safety chat beforehand. Blinds are checked for proper orientation and each hunter needs to know their “no shoot” area. The hunter on the right shouldn’t be shooting across the group to birds on the left and vice-versa.

Guns and loads

Newer waterfowling shotguns, which are almost always 12-gauge, can take ever-bigger powder and pellet loads. Most hunters use three-inch magnum loads, and some even go to 3.5-inch loads. Ask certain waterfowlers about the ideal load and you’re sure to start a vigorous debate.

Olson’s take is that people spend too much money and time fussing over expensive loads and not enough on scouting, their set-up and their concealment. “Hunters should also ensure that their gun fits them properly, and that they practice their shooting.

“Do those things and you’ll do fine with 2.75-inch or three-inch BB loads,” Olson suggested.

Putting it all together

If you ask Olson if you should add Canada geese into you fall schedule, you’ll get an enthusiastic response: “After five decades in the field, I can safely say that the good old days are now. Compared to the old days, Canada is incredibly abundant. It’s the best time ever to be a goose hunter.”

Amen.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Saturday confirmed high-path H5N1 avian flu in a backyard flock in the township of Selwyn, Ont., north of Peterborough, followed by an outbreak confirmed Monday in a commercial poultry flock in the township of Centre Wellington, north of Guelph.

According to the Feather Board Command Centre, which monitors disease outbreaks for Ontario’s poultry and egg industries, the Selwyn outbreak was first reported March 31 in a small backyard flock showing high mortality. The Centre Wellington outbreak was in a commercial flock of about 1,500 birds showing “decreased production.”

As of Tuesday the FBCC said it’s also monitoring three other premises with high mortalities and/or suspected cases, including one in southwestern Ontario, one north of Toronto and another in eastern Ontario, with no test results yet available.

Further east, the Quebec forests, wildlife and parks ministry on Monday reported findings of high-path H5N1 in three wild birds in that province: a Canada goose at Granby and two separate snow geese at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and St-Isidore-de-Laprairie in the province’s Monteregie.

While those findings mark the first in any birds in Quebec during the current run of H5N1 outbreaks in North America, the ministry said they were “expected,” given the virus’ appearances in both wild and domestic birds elsewhere in both Canada and the U.S. over the past few months.

In the U.S. since February, cases of high-path H5N1 have now been confirmed in commercial poultry and/or backyard flocks in 23 states — including four states directly bordering Canada.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it’s confirmed cases in flocks in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Virgina, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

APHIS said Sunday it has also now confirmed high-path avian flu in a commercial pheasant flock at Erath County in Texas, southwest of Fort Worth, though details weren’t available Tuesday on the specific type of avian flu in that case.

Other high-path H5N1 cases in Canada since last fall have included wild birds in all four Atlantic provinces and a bald eagle in the Vancouver area, plus domestic birds at two “non-poultry” farms in Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and two non-commercial backyard flocks in Nova Scotia.

Since none of those cases involved commercial poultry, Canada had been considered to be free of high-path avian flu since 2015, up until two outbreaks were confirmed on Nova Scotia poultry farms in February. Three commercial turkey operations and another backyard flock in southwestern Ontario were confirmed with the virus in the last week of March.

Control zones

CFIA on Thursday (March 31) also announced it had established new primary control zones (PCZs) in the areas of southwestern Ontario where H5N1 has been identified, with the aim of preventing further spread.

Any movement of domestic birds in and out of — or through — a PCZ is “strictly controlled” and requires a permit from CFIA, the agency said. Movement restrictions will also apply on poultry products and byproducts and on material that has “come into contact with domesticated birds.”

To maintain export market access, CFIA said, any poultry meat products originating from a PCZ “must meet the (avian flu) requirements of the importing countries” in question.

Control zones include both “infected” and “restricted” zones. Traffic involving live birds into or out of an infected zone is prohibited, except in live birds bound for slaughter or in outbound day-old chicks, either of which requires a specific permit.

Other traffic — such as in poultry meat, table eggs and poultry and egg products — in or out of or through a PCZ requires either general or specific permits.

Movement of any “small holding” poultry out of either the restricted or infected zones in a PCZ is prohibited, CFIA said. –– Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Poland is the European Union’s largest poultry producer.

Five outbreaks, of which four were at fattening turkey farms and one at a chicken broiler farm, were found in the eastern part of the country while another was discovered at a turkey and geese farm in the western part of the country, the OIE said, citing a report from Polish authorities.

Bird flu, most often carried from one country to the other by migrating wild birds, has been spreading rapidly in Europe, raising concern in the poultry industry after previous outbreaks led to the culling of tens of millions of birds and international trade restrictions.

The French government on Friday put the entire country on high alert for bird flu, extending a requirement to keep all poultry flocks indoors.

This comes after Dutch authorities last month also ordered commercial farms to keep all flocks inside after bird flu was reported on a farm.

Meanwhile, in Britain, an outbreak of high-path H5 bird flu was reported at a small poultry unit in central England on Monday.

All birds on the infected premises, near Alcester in Warwickshire, are to be culled, the British farm ministry said.

Britain last week declared a nationwide avian influenza prevention zone, ordering farms and bird keepers to toughen biosecurity measures.

High-path and low-path strains of H5 and H7 avian flu are all considered “notifiable” in Canada, meaning all cases must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and are subject to control measures.

Canada has been considered free of notifiable avian flu since late 2016, following a low-path H5N2 outbreak that summer on a commercial duck operation in Ontario.

The country’s last outbreaks of high-path avian flu in commercial poultry — also H5N2 strains — were in 2014 in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley and in 2015 in southwestern Ontario.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris and Nigel Hunt in London. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

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The court declined to hear an appeal by producers of foie gras, including the Association des Eleveurs de Canards et d’Oies du Quebec, a Canadian nonprofit that represents duck and goose farmers.

In doing so, the high court left intact a 2017 ruling by the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the law.

Animal rights groups contend that the force-feeding process is painful, gruesome and inhumane.

California enacted the law in 2004 but it did not go into effect until 2012. The Supreme Court in 2014 rejected an earlier appeal brought by producers and restaurants.

Foie gras means “fatty liver” in French. The product is produced by force-feeding corn to ducks and geese to enlarge their livers, which are harvested to make gourmet dishes.

The law specifically bans any product created by “force feeding a bird for the purpose of enlarging the bird’s liver beyond a normal size.”

— Lawrence Hurley reports on the U.S. Supreme Court for Reuters from Washington, D.C.

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The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a January 2015 lower court ruling striking down the law, saying the judge erred in concluding that the ban conflicted with a federal law governing the production of poultry products.

Friday’s 3-0 decision by the Pasadena-based appeals court is a victory for animal rights advocates opposed to force-feeding.

The decision is also a defeat for chefs who say they enjoy preparing foie gras, while luxury-minded diners enjoy eating it.

“It’s like a parent taking away a toy,” said Phillip Frankland Lee, the owner of Scratch Bar and Kitchen in Encino, Calif. and a former contestant on reality TV show Top Chef. “It will be something that’s missed by the guests.”

Prized by gourmands for its rich flavours, foie gras is the liver of specially fattened ducks or geese, and often used to make pate.

California’s law prohibits the sale of birds that are force-fed to enlarge their livers. It was passed in 2004 and originally took effect in 2012.

The law had been challenged by a group of Canadian duck and geese producers, the Association des Eleveurs de Canards et d’Oies du Quebec; Hudson Valley Foie Gras in Ferndale, New York; and Hot’s Restaurant Group in Los Angeles.

“They made a mistake,” Hudson Valley manager Marcus Henley said in an interview. “This law has always been unconstitutional and incorrect in its basis. We won’t be stopping.”

The office of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, which defended the law, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In January 2015, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles agreed with opponents of the foie gras ban that the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act preempted it.

But in Friday’s decision, Circuit Judge Jacqueline Nguyen said California was simply trying to ban a feeding method it deemed cruel and inhumane.

She said this posed no conflict with the federal law, even if its enforcement resulted in an effective ban on foie gras.

“Nothing in the federal law or its implementing regulations limits a state’s ability to regulate the types of poultry that may be sold for human consumption,” Nguyen wrote.

Jared Goodman, a lawyer for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said that group was “thrilled” by the decision.

“It prohibits selling diseased livers of birds force-fed by jamming tubes down their throat and pumping concentrated food down their esophagus,” Goodman said in an interview. “This is truly torture and unimaginable cruelty.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Jonathan Stempel and Richard Leong in New York and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles.

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So, when Cudmore joined the Fort Whyte Nature Centre (now Fort Whyte Alive) in 1983, there seemed no harm in keeping a few Canada geese as a display flock for visitors.

Big mistake.

Today, Manitoba Conservation estimates the Canada goose population in Winnipeg exceeds 170,000 during the fall migration peak. Cudmore puts the figure even higher in parks, residential subdivisions, on golf courses – anywhere there’s open space, grass and water.

And so is their manure. At Fort Whyte Alive, Cudmore, the site manager, has two workers who spend up to two hours each day sweeping goose droppings off public paths so visitors can walk.

COMMON SIGHT

Geese are so common that some Winnipeg streets post goose-crossing signs, much like the deer-crossing notices seen along rural highways.

They’ve become a public nuisance, thanks largely to the well-intentioned efforts of Fort Whyte Alive, which only wanted people to see these regal birds in a natural habitat.

“Too much of a good thing is not a good thing any more,” said Cudmore ruefully.

To be fair, Fort Whyte Alive had a lot of help in overpopulating Winnipeg with Canada geese.

When the City of Winnipeg and Ducks Unlimited learned of the centre’s work, they expressed interest in expanding it into an urban Canada goose-nesting project, said Cudmore.

Housing developments were going up in south Winnipeg with a new concept – retention ponds – ideal habitat for Canada geese.

Oak Hammock Marsh just north of the city was already a staging area for geese on their annual migratory flights.

So it seemed a natural fit to develop a Canada goose population in Winnipeg as a natural attraction.

No one realized how fast the population would expand.

Geese take three years from birth to become sexually mature. So the offspring of the half-dozen mating pairs retained in 1983 didn’t begin to breed until 1986.

But when they did, they were busy.

Cudmore said population counts by a city game management committee estimated 100,000 geese inside the Perimeter Highway on October 1, 1996 – the peak date for fall migration.

INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY

Subsequent annual counts found populations increased exponentially by over 20,000 a year.

Part of the reason was that Canada geese are philopatric – they return annually to the place where they were hatched, or at least where they learned to fly.

So when breeding pairs return to their nesting grounds each year, they bring an extended family of relatives along with them.

Also, Canada geese in the city have few natural enemies to keep numbers under control. Cudmore said at Fort Whyte Alive, native populations of foxes, raccoons and other predators keep nesting sites more or less in check. Not so in Metro Winnipeg, where geese wander freely unmolested.

Another major contributor to the population explosion is that it’s illegal to kill Canada geese without permission.

The 1917 Migratory Birds Convention Act, updated in 1994, protects migratory birds, their eggs and their nests from hunting, trafficking and commercialization. A federal permit is needed to kill geese or destroy nests.

PERMIT NEEDED

Rodney Penner, Winnipeg’s city naturalist, said residents sometimes complain about geese defecating on sports fields, school grounds and other public places. Sometimes homeowners report geese ripping up turf on their lawns. Occasionally, motorists express safety concerns about geese-crossing streets and roads.

An even greater concern is geese colliding with aircraft at the nearby Winnipeg international airport. Some fear a repeat of a January 15, 2009 incident in New York City when U. S. Airways Flight 1549 collided with a flock of Canada geese, knocking out its engines and forcing the pilot to make an emergency crash landing on the Hudson River. Miraculously, all 155 people on board survived.

Transport Canada reported 30 bird strikes with aircraft at the Winnipeg airport in 2008. It did not specify how many cases involved Canada geese.

But city hall currently has no population control plan for Canada geese and has not applied for federal control permits, Penner said.

He said the city has not carried out population counts for several years but hopes to do so again.

CONTROL PLAN

Meanwhile, city officials are talking with Manitoba Conservation and the Canadian Wildlife Service in hopes of formulating a plan, said Penner.

All of which marks a huge turnaround for the Giant Canada goose, the most common subspecies in Manitoba, which was considered nearly extinct in the 1950s.

Naturalists built refuges, raised geese in captivity and released them into the wild to restore their numbers.

Geese are herbivorous, which means they eat grasses and grains. The newbies fared very well after adapting to human-altered landscapes, including both urban communities and agriculture.

Waste grain on farmland is a huge source of food for Canada geese stopping over on their migratory flights. So much so that the number of Manitoba Agricultural Service Corporations claims for crop losses from goose predation rose 61 per cent to 305 between 2005 and 2009. MASC paid out $900,000 in indemnities in 2009, 2.75 times the amount paid four years earlier.

THRIVING

In cities, Canada geese thrive on freshly mowed lawns, an easy source of high-protein food. Retention ponds in residential neighbourhoods are prime nesting sites, because geese prefer to nest in open areas where they can see advancing enemies.

Cudmore said officials have practically thrown up their hands at the seeming impossibility of controlling urban goose numbers growth without drastic and publicly unpopular action.

Manitoba Conservation classes Canada geese as problem wildlife and offers some ways of reducing their attraction to private property.

For one thing, don’t feed the geese. They’ll become used to handouts and lose their fear of humans.

Put barrier fencing around areas where geese tend to land.

Change lawn-care practices to discourage geese. Let grass grow longer, making it more difficult for the birds to find preferred, young, tender shoots. Reduce water and fertilizer use. Plant grasses and shrubs that geese do not like (e. g., fescue and juniper).

Use scaring techniques to deter geese. These can include strobe lights, flags, balloons and scarecrows. Unfortunately, noisemaking devices, the most effective method, are not popular with neighbours.

Hunting, once a method of controlling goose populations, now has a negligible effect because of the sport’s declining popularity. Wildlife officials estimate the number of hunters in Manitoba has declined by 75 per cent since the late 1970s. ron@fbcpublishing.com

The post Canada Geese Move From Near Extinction To Pest – for Sep. 9, 2010 appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

A recently signed agreement with former owner Don Salkeld sees the Métis group assume ownership of Northern Goose Processing for a purchase price of roughly $3 million.

The slaughter line has been idle since last year while Salkeld sought a buyer for the company founded in 1976. A related goose feather and down business is still in operation, said Blake Russell, CEO of the Métis Economic Development Organization.

The plant will resume full production this fall after undergoing $2 million in renovations, slated to finish Sept. 1, Russell said.

Northern Goose is the only federally inspected goose-processing plant in Canada and the only one in North America certified to export goose meat to the European Union.

The company recently won an eight-year legal battle to restore its EU export status after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency delisted the plant as an authorized exporter in 1999.

The courts eventually awarded Salkeld $8.5 million in damages but left him financially drained and wanting to get out of the business. He listed the plant for sale in early 2009.

The newly formed MEDO saw a business opportunity and went for it. Northern Goose is one of the Métis organization’s first commercial enterprises and its very first acquisition, said Russell.

The company will continue to focus on marketing to the European market as an Aboriginal branded product, he said.

“We’re buying this plant to focus on growing the demand overseas taking the Canadian Aboriginal brand and going to the world and selling it.”

Salkeld will continue with the company as the plant’s general manager.

Russell said Northern Goose aims to process 10 million kg (live weight) of geese and turkey annually. A local Hutterite colony was a main supplier in the past. That relationship will continue but the company is also looking for other suppliers, including Métis farmers in the Interlake region, he said.

The only other federally inspected turkey processor in Manitoba is Granny’s Poultry.

MEDO expects the plant will generate $5 million in procurement from local producers, millions of dollars in export sales, 150 full-time jobs and more in spinoff employment, said Russell.

The plant could present an opportunity to turkey producers either to buy more turkey quota or to fill partially empty barns with geese, which do not require quota, he said. ron@fbcpublishing.com

The post Métis Business Group Buys Teulon Goose Plant appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

I was resigned to never knowing the end of Pâté’s story, until one spring an amazing thing happened.

The dictionary says that goose pâté is a paste made from the livers of fattened geese, but around our house, Pâté (paa-tay) is the affectionate name given to a Canada goose that came to live with us one September.

She was delivered by a conservation officer from Shoal Lake, who responded to a complaint from a resident of Sandy Lake, concerned that the goose was being improperly kept. Upon investigation, this was deemed to be the case, charges were laid and the bird was seized. It is an offence to keep a wild bird captive for any reason without a federally granted Aviculture Permit.

Because she was a hand-raised subadult, the conservation officer knew the goose would not survive if immediately released. More importantly, she could not fly. Her tail feathers, which a goose needs for steering, had broken off as a result of being kept in too small an enclosure.

So Pâté joined my pet ducks in their pen. Once she was comfortable, she followed their routine of being free to explore the yard, pond and lake in the daytime. In response to my early-evening whistle, the hens waddle behind the drake, single file, back into their pen, where they are safe from predators for the night. But Pâté was not always so

easy to round up. She had many evasive techniques, which she chose to use usually when I was in a hurry!

One October, Pâté installed herself on a beaver mound in our pond, refusing to be rounded up in the evening. This was particularly odd, as she had formed a strong bond with another injured female Canada goose we have taken in. On her third day on the pond, as I tried to coax her home with her favourite treats of dried corn and bits of brown bread, she lifted off and flew away.

I was sad and worried. Did she migrate? Would she survive after so many years of reliance on humans? Was she strong enough? Would she evade hunters? Would she become a tasty, corn-fed meal for a coyote? I was resigned to never knowing the end of Pâté’s story, until one spring an amazing thing happened. We saw a goose walking on the lawn one day, but when I went out to investigate, it flew away. Then we saw it in the horse pasture and in the driveway. One morning, there it was on the dock. “Pâté? Is that you?” I asked. She answered me! We had a long goose and human conversation, but she flew off again when I tried to approach her.

It was about a month until we saw her again, but to our great surprise and pleasure, she came by to show us her family – a handsome mate and seven lovely goslings. They graze on our lawn and rest on the dock, but are easily startled and don’t stay around long.

Usually, when people interfere with the natural state of wildlife, the result is not in favour of the animal. However, the story of Pâté has a happy ending, which I am pleased to share.

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