If you like hunting Canada geese, today is your lucky day. Today marks the first day of the two-week resident goose season (through Sept. 15) in the eastern zone, or an almost-four-week season (through Sept. 25) in the western zone. (Check the Maryland 2006-07 hunting guide for eastern/western zones.)
Resident geese are those that have set up year-round housekeeping here instead of nesting in the Canadian provinces each spring and flying south for the winter.
They have been a problem for a decade or more, according to Larry Hindman, the Department of Natural Resources? waterfowl project manager. The first special resident goose season occurred in 1994. It is thought that the present flocks of residents are from early stockings of mid-Western geese that are more sedentary than those in our eastern flyway.
Residents are also known to have developed from captive geese (some mid-Western) used as live decoys and mostly released after 1935 when the live-decoy practice was made illegal. Estimates are that about 21,000 geese were kept and then released along the East Coast.
In many quarters, the Canada geese homesteaders are considered a nuisance, just as many consider squirrels “tree rats.” Resident geese have increased over the years, causing problems.
These include traffic interference, droppings on lawns and golf courses, agriculture depredation when they prey on corn and soybeans or uproot fresh seedlings, eating residential lawn plantings, and overgrazing wild rice in upper tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay.
It is a double-edged sword, Hindman said, since they also provide increased recreational opportunities.
Estimates are that we have about 76,000 resident Canada geese in Maryland, often around suburban areas. Maryland officials would like to get that population down to a manageable 30,000. Hunting allows this and a limit of up to eight per day ? a possession limit of 16 ? is preferable to depredation permits and other control methods.
Recent rule relaxation by the feds might allow even more options next season. Not in effect this year are the possibilities of a season openerof Aug. 1 (passed, but too late for enactment this year), the use of electronic calls, shooting a half-hour after sunset and the use of unplugged guns in August.
Right now, it is all up for grabs with the feds, Hindman and friends, but the possibilities of some or all of these options should make next year very interesting. For the present, take advantage of the next few weeks.
The current hunting prospects look good until the end of the month, and by then, migratory Canada geese should start soaring south for the Nov. 16 Atlantic Population season opener.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors, and he has more than 20 books to his credit. He can be reached at [email protected].
