Snow Goose – here today, gone tomorrow

Sometimes spring migration begins with a tantalizing trickle of birds, and sometimes there is an overwhelming but welcome deluge.
This year the flood gates opened in mid-May. Among the many species rushing to their breeding grounds are snow geese. They are a valued subsistence resource that make only a brief and sometimes spectacular appearance in the region. Since they are here, this spotlight is on them.
Snow geese are one the world’s most abundant waterfowl species. They nest in large colonies across arctic coastal regions between Wrangel Island, Russia and Greenland.
The flocks of dazzling white geese that pass over our region in spring and fall, or stop briefly to rest and refuel, are international travelers. They are in the midst of a 3,000-mile journey between their wintering areas between British Columbia and California, and their nesting grounds on Wrangel Island, Russia.
Their timing and use of stopover sites on the Seward Peninsula vary from year to year, depending on environmental conditions. Sometimes large numbers of snow geese land on the peninsula’s coastal lowlands and river estuaries to feed and rest, or flocks may overfly or bypass the peninsula entirely.
In spring, the lowlands between Koyuk and the Inglutalik River flats is one of the more consistent stopover sites where large numbers of geese—and subsistence hunters—refuel.
In 2016, I found large flocks of snow geese at Safety Sound in late April, but that was exceptionally early. More often snow geese don’t reach the east end of the Seward Peninsula until the first or second week of May. Peak passage of breeding snow geese typically happens within a few days, but nonbreeders may be spotted throughout June.
In fall, peak migration via the Seward Peninsula is typically around the last week of September or early October. In the past, snow geese numbering in the thousands have been reported on southern and eastern parts of St. Lawrence Island in fall. Island residents traveled in late September and early October to hunt them but report declining numbers since about 2010.
Snow geese have strong family ties. Pairs are monogamous and may form lifelong bonds. The young stay with their parents until they choose a mate in their second or third year of life. Pairs are territorial at their nest sites. Otherwise, these noisy, talkative geese are highly gregarious.
Snow geese have a strictly vegetarian diet, except for young goslings that may eat some insect larvae. On the breeding grounds these geese have seemingly insatiable appetites, devouring the entirety of grasses, sedges, horsetails, other wetland or aquatic plants, forbs, and shrubs, as well as berries in the fall.
They “grub” for roots, tubers and rhizomes, often ripping entire plants from the ground, roots and all. In some breeding areas, this feeding behavior can damage and change the habitat to the detriment of other birds and wildlife.
During migration females spend up to 50 percent of the day feeding. On the breeding grounds they graze voraciously for up to 75 percent of the day to fatten up before nesting. Once they begin incubating, they eat little.
At one time, snow geese in the Lower 48 and Canada overwintered in coastal and inland marshes where they ate roots and rhizomes of wetland plants. Over time they adapted to foraging in agricultural habitats during migration and in winter, foraging in huge flocks to eat waste grains.
Snow geese have thrived on consumption of waste grain and the creation of refuges where the geese are fed and protected. This led to rapid population growth, and some populations have grown so large that breeding and wintering habitats have been damaged. This is a problem on the Arctic coastal plain in Alaska, where there is concern that they may outcompete brant on the nesting grounds and degrade habitat for nesting shorebirds.
I was unable to find information about the condition of the Wrangel Island nesting habitat. Estimates of the Wrangel Island snow goose population are obtained by counts on their primary wintering grounds in the Skagit-Fraser River Deltas in British Columbia and Washington state.
Since 1970, the estimated population has ranged from 40,000 to 100,000 snow geese. In 2023 the reported estimate was 87,000 snow geese, showing a 7 percent increase over a 10-year period.
It is important to manage snow goose populations and limit excessive growth to prevent habitat destruction in their nesting areas. This is attempted primarily by adopting liberal harvest regulations.
Hunters in this region are doing their part, enjoying the bounty provided by these fat white geese.