Black Brant in Humboldt County

Brant geese consume eelgrass. During Betsy's presentation, she informed us that Humboldt County has the most eelgrass between Washington down to Mexico. Eelgrass exists in the oceans, and it stays just below the water, dependent upon tide. Brant geese do not dive (no geese dive) and therefore, they must wait for the tides to change in order to consume the food. Betsy illustrated that the Brant geese vary their feeding technique based upon the tide. If it is under 0.9meters than the goose typically does this thing called bed feeding, this is when they can obtain the most nutritious leaves from the eelgrass. However, with the limited amount of time that the eelgrass is exposed does not allow for the geese to obtain all of the energy reserves they need for migration. So they have another method called drift feeding, which is when the tide is over 0.9meters. They basically try to eat the leaves that are floating around above the beds. These floating leaves, however, are not as nutritious as the bed leaves are, but they still provide more nutrition to hold the brant geese over for the migration.
Humboldt County is the fourth most important location within the Pacific Flyway for the Brant.  Historically, however, the current population numbers still fall before the numbers it was before 1950s. This may be associated with the reduction in eelgrass. Since the population has declined, there have been stricter regulations on hunting, for hunting negatively impacts the Brant goose.  However, this paper stated that they were uncertain if the population is actually declining in the United State of America, or per chance the Brant are actually moving to Mexico and wintering in that region.  So there will be more population assessments to come to see how the United States population is.