The Greenland White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons flavirostris

Spring count
16000
12000
8000
4000
0
Wexford
Islay
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Census year
Figure 2.2. Annual spring counts of Greenland Whitefronted
Geese at the two most important wintering
sites, Islay in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland and Wexford
Slobs in south-east Ireland. The vertical arrow
indicates protection from hunting at both sites.
tinue to decline in number or disappear, a process
which is not matched by colonisation of new
wintering sites, only one of which, in eastern Ireland,
seems to have become regular.
2.6 What of the future for the Greenland
White-fronted Goose?
The conservation of a relatively small population
of one race of an abundant circumpolar species is
not a high priority in its own right. Nevertheless,
the Greenland White-fronted Goose became a
“flagship” organism for the conservation of
peatlands on its wintering grounds during the
1980s, representing a top consumer organism of
fragile peatland systems under threat from forestry,
commercial peat exploitation and drainage
at that time. Even in areas where they no longer
feed on peatlands, the geese exploit features of
an extreme oceanic low intensity pastoral system
that supports a rich ecologically diverse community
(Bignal et al. 1988, Bignal & McCracken 1996).
Conservation actions to protect Greenland Whitefronts
in winter therefore safeguard a set of unusual
and scarce habitats that also support other
breeding and wintering species. The research and
conservation effort invested in the population
over the years now provides a long time series of
annual numbers, distribution and breeding success
amongst a discrete population of migratory
waterbirds. The marking programme, started in
Greenland in 1979 and continued to the present
(largely in Ireland where birds continue to be collared
on a regular basis), provides a 20 year record
of individual life histories. In the fullness of time
(since these geese are long lived), these records
will provide important additional insights on
changes in such critical parameters such as age
of first breeding, lifetime reproductive success
and mortality. The very process of studying this
population has given the Greenland Whitefronted
Goose scientific interest which may offer
some insights into population processes and conservation
strategies to protect other taxa.
The Greenland White-fronted Goose also faces
new and different challenges in the immediate
future. Global climate change has the potential
to modify the meteorological conditions of the
bird throughout its range, and hence the habitats
and phenology of growth of plants which they
exploit. Nowhere is this more of a potential threat
than on the breeding areas, where change is forecast
to be most dramatic. Model predictions agree
that north-west Greenland will experience cooler
summers and therefore increasingly delayed
springs (Zöckler & Lysenko 2000) and there are
indications that these patterns are already evident
(Rigor et al. 2000). As is discussed in depth elsewhere
in the thesis, there is mounting evidence
for 'leap-frog' migration and segregation amongst
this goose population (MS2, MS6 and see Chapter
6). Geese breeding in the south of the breeding
range tend to winter furthest north and vice
versa. Hence, cooling in the north of the breeding
range is likely to affect those geese that winter in
Ireland and Wales more than those wintering in
Scotland (MS2, MS27). Breeding success in the
population is linked to June temperatures
(Zöckler & Lysenko 2000). Some climate models
predict that central west Greenland (between 67º
and 69ºN) will experience warmer springs which
could improve conditions for geese breeding there
(Rigor et al. 2000, W. Skinner in litt.). This is the
area with the highest densities of summering
Greenland White-fronted Geese, both breeding
and moulting (MS23), and is thought to be the
summering area of birds which winter predominantly
in Scotland (MS2). It is also the area where
breeding and moulting Canada Geese have increased
greatly in recent years (MS13, MS22).
During the moult, White-fronted and Canada
Geese use the same habitats and areas adjacent
to open water bodies to regrow flight feathers (see
chapter 7). Canada Geese there breed in their third
summer and produce more young per unit area
than Whitefronts using the same habitats. Canada
Geese are also behaviourally dominant over them
there (Jarrett 1999, Kristiansen 2001). Since Canada
Geese show no signs of reducing their rate of
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