Living Lightly
By
LILLIAN VALLEE
At the close of the fall semester I was in my office figuring out grades when I got a phone call: U.S. Fish & Wildlife biologists were hoping to band and collar some Aleutian Canada Geese (Branta canadensis leucopareia) at the San Joaquin Wildlife Refuge—did I want to watch? The thought of getting a close look at a species that had almost vanished into history was too powerful to question. I raced over to Beckwith Road, and when I got to the refuge platform, everyone was standing around or keeping warm in pickups waiting for the geese to land in the right spot so the rocket net could be fired. The geese had been uncooperative for weeks, and it didn’t look as if they were going to change their minds this afternoon. They continued to have some fun by landing on the rocket net. I liked them already, but some of the more frustrated folks abandoned their cold vigil and sought out a warm supper.
The sun was dropping quickly into a cauldron of molten purples, scarlets, and yellows. Stirred up by a red-tail, thousands of geese formed a surreal, mobile dome of whirring wings and wild cries. If nothing else had happened against that burning horizon, the primal Valley experience of being in an open field surrounded by thousands of raucous, winged creatures would have been enough. But the geese had an appreciative audience, and they could not pass up the chance to toy with the boundaries of human expectation. They got off the rocket net. Then they settled in the right spot.
I neither heard nor saw the rocket net being launched, but suddenly pandemonium broke out. Everyone was piling into vehicles and racing over deeply-pitted and very muddy roads to bag the geese and start the work as quickly as possible to minimize trauma to the birds. There was a sense of urgency yet carefulness to all movements because, by now, it was dark, and everything had to be done in the beams of headlights and headlamps. The net had pinned, we found out later, over 240 geese! Each would have to be bagged, then removed from the bag, held, examined for sex and age, held again while being banded and collared, and then held for the last time, for exactly thirty seconds, so the glue on the collar could dry.
The Aleutian Canada Goose is one of the smallest six subspecies of Canada Geese. It is 25 to 27 inches long and has a four-foot wingspan. The Aleutian Canada Goose has characteristic white cheeks, a collar ring of white feathers, and a small, exquisite head with a short bill for chopping grasses and taking seeds. Almost the entire known population of Aleutian Canada Geese arrives at the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge, just west of Modesto, after flying an epic two thousand miles, non-stop, over the Pacific from the Aleutian Islands, a chain extending from the Alaskan peninsula to Asia. After landing in Oregon and California between August and December, the geese move down the flyway to the Central Valley where they winter, some in the Sacramento Valley. In February, they begin “staging” and feeding in pastures in northern California and the Oregon coast, in preparation for their return to nest on their natal islands. There is an Aleutian Canada Goose Festival in Del Norte County, April 1-3, to celebrate this return migration.
In the past Aleutian Canada Geese traveled from the islands to as far away as northern Mexico and Japan, but the introduction of the Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) to the Aleutian Islands for the fur trade over a century ago added a formidable predator. The geese are ground nesters and already susceptible to predation by eagles, gulls, falcons, owls and jaegers, not to mention avian diseases. The geese were thought extinct until a population was discovered in 1962 on Buldir Island. The island’s remoteness and rocky shoreline discouraged fur trappers, and its inaccessibility had protected the last populations of Aleutian Canada Geese.
In 1975 young biologist Dennis Woolington, now a senior biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife staff at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge (and a participant in the tagging operation), surveyed the Aleutian Canada Goose population and came up with 790 geese. Woolington, who has worked with the Greater Canada Goose, spent three summers following the populations of Aleutian Canada Geese from the islands to their wintering grounds.
“When Aleutian Canada Geese were on the endangered list, no one knew where they spent their winters until Dennis Woolington tracked them up and down the West coast of the U.S. and Canada for his master’s degree work in the mid-1970s,” writes Ned Rozell. “When he [Woolington] found groups of geese in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys in California, he told authorities, who closed the hunting season for all Canada Geese in those areas.” These selective closures, along with the trapping of the Arctic foxes, brought the species back from the brink. Experts agree that Dennis Woolington’s work “was fundamental for the recovery of the Aleutian Canada Goose.”
In the 1990’s the goose was removed from the endangered list to threatened, and by 2001 it was delisted altogether. Currently the Aleutian Canada Goose is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, along with other migratory wildfowl. There are also international efforts underway, with Russian and Japanese scientists, to return migrating populations to Russian possessions in the Aleutian chain and to Japan. The cumulative efforts of one biologist’s expertise and commitment, critical partnerships between public and private agencies and individuals, and effective and enforced wildlife laws have resulted in a healthy population that has increased from 790 geese in 1975 to somewhere between 85,000 to 90,000 in 2005.
That evening I understood soon enough that passive observation was not on the agenda. Every pair of hands was needed, and before I knew it, I was on all fours, in the dirt and muck, holding down the net or lifting it to grab a goose, tying and untying knots in the cotton sacks, separating the sacks so the birds would not overheat, reporting the data, feeling the fierce beating hearts against my own, and releasing them to rejoin their partners, families, flocks. The tagging helps biologists gather data on population dynamics and distribution, but this good purpose fades next to the visceral thrill of restraining the powerful wings, the grasping bills, and the sharp nails I never suspected existed at the end of webbed feet. Studying the muscular black necks, so snake-like, intense and vital, I could understand why water birds were regarded as symbols of the divine feminine. Holding the calmer geese, I could understand why native women would wrap their infants in these soft wings.
In the end I lost my favorite sunglasses. I lost track of time. And I certainly couldn’t explain how it was that I had left the house to do grades and had returned looking like a mud wrestler. I was filthy dirty and deliriously happy. Since then I have carried that happiness around with me like a talisman, a reminder that we benefit from the many selfless acts of good people. Perhaps the geese, too, will retain some memory of human affection from hands that tagged and numbered, but also stroked and caressed, before they returned the beating hearts and wings to the darkness.
Sources: Brian Anderson, Alaska Department of Fish & Game website; Ned Rozell, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks—Alaska Science Forum; David Allen Sibley, The Sibley Guide to Birds and The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior; Dennis Woolington, Personal Interview, January 3, 2005.Lillian Vallee is a Professor of Literature and Language Arts at Modesto Junior College.
By CAROLINE MITTON
The Tuolumne River Coalition is a watershed group, composed of a wide variety of organizations with interest in the river, which was formed to maximize the state and federal funding allotted to our river for restoration and public, recreational access. Only by making sure everyone is heard can the Coalition be sure that the plans it endorses answer the needs and wishes of the community.
Contrary to the statement in the Modesto Bee, the Coalition does not develop plans. Its members do that. The Coalition looks at the plans members have submitted and develops packets that include these plans when it asks for funding from state and federal sources. Criteria for inclusion include such things as whether the project meets the Coalition guidelines and is ready to be started as soon as funding is available.
Since a wide variety of input is essential to the success of projects, these funding sources look at the breadth of community involvement when they are deciding which project to fund. The Coalition has representatives from cities along the River, the County, MID/TID, San Francisco’s Public Utilities District, farmers, federal and local restoration agencies, and those interested in walking and bicycling along the river.
Knowing it still didn’t have all of the concerns of the community covered, the Coalition recently organized a well-attended public meeting where concerns and questions were raised. Most questions were answered by the members; the rest are listed as things to look at in the near future.
To learn more or have some input into the Coalition, go to www.tuoumnerivercoalition.org
