Here’s the plan, a way to put a stop to all this election mess before the Democratic conventioneers destroy Denver and the Republicans go crazy trying to figure out how they wound up with John McCain.
First candidate to figure out this snow goose thing gets to be president. No further questions.
Clearly, such a person possesses all the wisdom of the ages and sufficient savvy to solve all those less-perplexing issues troubling the nation and the world.
This feathery foible involves two issues — distinct, yet connected.
One concerns the efforts of wildlife managers from two countries who have spent the past decade trying to keep the birds from ripping up the tundra of far northern Canada, beak by beak. An explosion of lesser snow geese each year causes what may be irreversible damage to this fragile landscape; biologists want to cut their numbers by half or more.
Another has to do with the alternate delight and frustration of hunters who have been co-opted into a variable plan of population pruning. During a special conservation season that began Saturday, hunters are urged to shoot as many snows as their shotshell budget allows.
The notion is to allow sportsmen — those folks who promote the well-being of North American ducks and geese by the purchase of licenses and stamps and their support for organizations such as Ducks Unlimited — to help trim the flock. Alternatives include live trapping or destruction of eggs on the breeding grounds.
Hunters have been eager to assist. Certainly the band of enthusiasts who pulled a red-eye Monday traveling to a location near Sedgwick were more than willing to do their part. Here, they found a field with ample grain where Mike Adams and Danny Kahler arranged 34 dozen of the finest Avery motion decoys, the sort of layout that normally would bring the 20,000 or so snow geese resting on nearby Jumbo Reservoir flapping as fast as their black-tipped wings could carry them.
These guides are principals in Webbed Feet Down Outfitters, 970-302-9677, and this location in the extreme northeast corner of Colorado is home turf during the twice-yearly travels of snow geese. Of the two, the spring migration back north provides the most consistent hunting opportunity.
This notion sometimes doesn’t translate to the geese. On Monday morning, when a cruel northwest wind scattered snow, sleet, fog and sunshine — often at the same time — most geese drifted south along the South Platte River, out of sight of the spread.
Some returned to provide a flurry of afternoon sport, but it wasn’t exactly what you would term a mass flock reduction. Part of the problem involves the nature of this part of the migration.
“The first wave is mostly older birds,” Kahler said of adults that might have advanced into their late teens. “They’re smart and they’ve been hunted steadily since October. We’ll do a lot better when the juvenile birds start moving through in a few days.”
This latest experience serves as a sort of microcosm for the overall effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to achieve the trim. Since it began the effort in 1999, FWS has watched hunter harvest more than double, from 600,000 to about 1.3 million. Still, this has earned no better than a draw with the prolific geese.
“We’ve stopped the growth, but not much more than that,” said Dave Sharp, FWS representative to the Central Flyway Council. “But we didn’t want stable. We wanted a decline.”
Sharp, who works at the FWS office in Lakewood, noted that without the increased hunter activity, the continental population would have ballooned by 40 to 50 percent, a total disaster both for the Canadian tundra and certain marshlands along the migration route.
While snow goose season officially lasts through April, the Colorado hunt effectively ends in late March. There’s still plenty of time to do your part, and it beats the heck out of running for president.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
