Document text
photo from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service More than 30,000 Aleutian geese visit the coast of Northern California on their way to the Aleutian Islands in March, crowding fields and bodies of water as they fatten up for the trip. A festival in Crescent City beginning Friday celebrates the waterfowl. Aleutian geese soar back And this month, they'll all come to Crescent City By Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune G. Vernon Byrd got the job of rescuing the Aleutian goose from extinction in 1974. The job goes on to this day, and so far it's a spectacular success story. G. Vernon Byrd The sub-species of Canada goose nests on several small islands in the Aleutians chain in the spring and migrates to the central valleys of California for the winter. It was nearly wiped out in the 19th and 20th centuries by foxes introduced by trappers for the fur trade. The entire population passes through Crescent City, Calif., this month, spending nights on offshore Castle Rock and feeding in nearby fields during the days. "In the beginning we weren't even sure where it wintered," says Byrd, a supervisory wildlife biologist with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge based in Homer, Alaska. Biologists knew the goose nested each spring on three tiny islands (they found two more in 1982), the largest of which was 5,000 acres. There were no mammal predators until Russian trappers in the 1780s introduced foxes, which decimated native bird populations. Starting about 1910, American trappers made a major effort to put foxes on the islands. "It was demand for the fox fur," Byrd says. The foxes didn't stop at goose dinner. "It was all the native birds," Byrd says. Happy foxes went unmolested as they dined on tufted puffins, storm petrels, glaucous-winged gulls, black oystercatchers, loons, eiders, green-winged teal and other waterfowl. They ate the eggs and chicks. And they ate adult geese, especially in the fall when the birds are unable to fly after they molt (when their worn feathers are replaced by new ones). "It was pretty easy going for the foxes," Byrd says. The islands became a national wildlife refuge in 1913, but staffers lacked resources to do anything about the foxes. By the time the first resident manager came after World War II, the geese were thought to be extinct. It wasn't until the Endangered Species Act in 1972 that the mechanism existed for a recovery team, Byrd says. Byrd and his team started trapping and shooting the foxes in 1974. Most poisons can't be used on federal refuges because they go up the food chain to top predators such as eagles. Twenty-six years later there are an estimated 35,000 geese. Each spring crews are dispatched to the islands for four to six months of fox duty. "We're getting some incredible recovery," Byrd says. "Birds come from the smaller islands and repopulate the ones the foxes have been removed from. "The goose was the impetus, but it was sort of a surrogate for all the species." The biggest threats to birds in the Aleutians right now, Byrd says, are ocean conditions that affect food supply, changes in prey population due to marine cycles, overfishing, oil spills and driftnets. "Driftnets aren't the problem they were 10 years ago," he says. "But there are still ghost nets out there." The goose has recovered to the point that it may be removed from the endangered list later this year. Byrd says it's an example of how well the Endangered Species Act can work. "I can understand how folks that have local concerns and don't have that broad view are concerned about the act," he says. "But I don't think that fear is justified." See also : Crescent City celebrates its geese Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA