Western Canada Geese in Humboldt County

Problematic Western Canada Geese roamed golf courses in Nevada, causing quite a nuisance  Therefore, these geese were translocated into Humboldt County to allow hunting of these disruptive geese. Was the county okay with this translocation? Who knows? They were not asked prior to the event. However, the widlife authorities did gain an increase in the number of complaints from farmers.
The wings of these geese were clipped when translocated so they would not be able to migrate back to Nevada and would have to become permanent Californian residents. The flightless Canada Geese were trapped from 1998-2001 and given collars. With each collar came a great deal of data including age, sex and now with the collar we are able to learn where they are with citizen scientists reporting the location of the goose and the collar information. After banding approximately 11% of the geese emigrated outside of Humboldt County but none of them went back to their origin of Reno, Nevada.
Average flock size - 125 geese
Preferable habitat - Farm lands with a larger percentage of water and farm lands close to roosting sites
Goal in Humboldt County - To create sustainable hunting
Nest predation -50-60%
The thing about this geese population, however, is it is extremely fragile. In Griggs and Black's (2003) they stated that if there is a change in 50 birds in either direction it will either triple the population size or it could decrease the population dramatically within 30 years.