200 000 snow geese foiled the hunters

Photo courtesy, Guy Huot
The number of white geese on the reservoir Beaudet double each day and will culminate at the end of the month.

Yanick Fish

Friday, October 6, 2017 20:43

UPDATE
Friday, October 6, 2017 20:43

Look at this article

VICTORIAVILLE | Not less than 200 000 snow geese are intelligent enough to avoid the hunters, by landing on a lake near the centre of the city of Victoriaville.

By the end of the month of October, the geese will settle on the reservoir Beaudet, in Victoriaville as part of their journey of migration.

They favored once the Cap-Tourmente and the St. Lawrence shores to rest during their journey of 4000 km between

the Arctic and the New York city area.

But today, they have adapted to avoid the fire of the hunters and ask to Victoriaville, where hunting is prohibited as too close to the city.

Smart

According to the ornithologist specialist snow geese, Guy Huot, they have made their appearance on the artificial reservoir in 1997 and they are more numerous every year, as if they were the word. They are in Victoriaville plenty of food and protection from hunters.

Photo Yanick Fish

Guy Huot, Ornithologist

“Most people refuse to admit that animals are endowed with intelligence. The geese have an amazing ability to adapt. As they were hunted near the river, they are aventurées in the land. In Victoriaville, they are able to feed in the same fields and, of course, in urban areas, hunting is forbidden, ” he explains.

20% of the population

The first specimens of geese have made their appearance on the body of water located close to the city centre this week. Every day, their population doubles and it is expected that the basin is filled to its maximum capacity (200 000 birds) at the end of October.

It is about 20 % of the world’s population that moved to Victoriaville. The journey of migration takes them from their natural habitat located on the shores of the Arctic between Hudson bay and Greenland up to the Chesapeake bay, New Jersey, a trip of 4000 km.

The migration patterns of the geese are being studied by several researchers in north american universities with the help of GPS.

Not geese

In addition to snow-white geese, several species of rare birds stop at Victoriaville during their migration.

According to Mr. Huot, 269 of the 306 species of birds living in Quebec have been listed on the reservoir Beaudet in recent years, which attracts many bird watchers.

It is expected that 400 of them are present in Victoriaville at the end of October.

If Victoriaville is the place of predilection of the snow geese in the fall, Baie-du-Febvre, also in the Centre-du-Québec, continues to be stop number one in the spring.

Almost extinct

• The snow goose came close to extinction early in the last century. It consisted of only 3000 specimens, which stopped at Cap-Tourmente.
• In the 1960s, there were 200 000 snow geese. Too many for the Cap-Tourmente, they began to spread along the St. Lawrence river to provide food.
• In the mid-1990s, many geese have chosen to stop over more deeply in the land in order to escape the hunt.

Batt, B. D. J; “The Greater Snow Goose” joint plan of the canadian Wildlife Service and U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ottawa (1998). Godfrey, W. Earl, The Birds of Canada (revised edition, 1989). Mowbray, T. B., F. Cooke and B. Gander: “Snow Goose” in Birds of North America, no. 514 (2000). Documentation of researchers from Ducks Unlimited