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Crescent City celebrates its geese By Bill Varble of the Mail Tribune If the Aleutian goose is a success story -- and it seems to be -- G. Vernon Byrd helped put the success in the story. Byrd is a wildlife biologist who headed the team that worked to bring the goose back from the brink of extinction to today's burgeoning population of more than 30,000 birds. He plans to tell the story Friday at the second annual Aleutian Goose Festival in Crescent City, Calif. The festival runs for three days starting at 8 a.m. Friday in and around that small coastal town. It offers bird watching, migrating whales, tide pools, river trips, history tours, rare owls, children's programs and more. The entire world's population of the goose, a sub-species of the Canada goose, is scheduled to show up for the party. Each day at dawn's first light the short-necked geese rise from offshore Castle Rock and fill the air with their honking as they fly to fields and pastures around Crescent City to feed. At sundown, they abandon the fields and fill the sky with vee after vee heading back to the island. A good spot for viewing is Point St. George, just up the coast from Crescent City. The geese remain in the area for about six weeks, fattening up for the long flight to the Bering Sea. Festival events and activities on tap for the long weekend range from viewing geese and other birds to kayak and drift boat trips, nature photography, marine mammals, native plants and salmon. Many require registration ahead of time; some cost up to $40. A slate of community activities is open to festival participants, families and the public at low cost or for free. Included are bird and mammal exhibits, a gosling corner, lighthouse tours, a Crescent City historic tour, whale-watching and a program by Wildlife Images, the animal rescue center. But the real star of the weekend is the Aleutian Canada goose. Mr. and Ms. Goose look much like their larger, familiar cousins, but without the trademark goose neck. Byrd's bird talk is scheduled for Friday night at the Crescent City Cultural Center. "We're excited about having him," says the Festival's Sandy Jerabek. "He's the head goose guy. He's got slides from the islands." Other key presenters are Paul Springer, another goose recovery team member; and keynote speaker Stanley Harris, curator of birds for the Humboldt Sate University wildlife museum and the author of "Northwestern California Birds." The festival is a not-for-profit volunteer event held under the aegis of SOAR (Scenic Ocean and Redwoods), an economic development program, with the additional help of U.S. Forest Service grant. The festival begins at 8 a.m. Friday and ends at 4 p.m. Sunday. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA