Game Bird Specialist speaking in St Albert.

[Phil]

On Tuesday April 8th at 8.00 pm the St. Albert Fish and Game Assoc. will have Dr. Jason Caswell the Provincial Game Bird Specialist speaking at their General Meeting. Dr. Caswell will discuss game birds in the province with a focus on snow geese and hunting regulation changes as it pertains to snow geese. Dr. Caswell will be happy to answer any questions you might have on the game birds that make Alberta their home.

Members of the public are invited to attend. The meeting is held at the St Albert Community Hall 17 Perron St. in St. Albert.

[Cinch]

Should be a good discussion. I hope someone asks when AB is getting a crane season...

[Mark]

I can't make it, but could somebody ask Jason on the status of the pheasant release program. It would be great to have some facts directly from the source.

[bigfishen]

I have listened to his presentation about 6 months ago and I found it very interesting and informative. I learned alot of really interesting facts and he tried to answer all questions as best as he could with real answers. He also mentioned he is a hunter so he does have us hunters best interests as well as conservation in mind.

[Phil]

Sorry for the lateness in posting this info.

Jason gave an excellent talk on Tuesday, unfortunately due to some misinformation/misunderstandings on my part he was unable to use his power point presentation and was forced to talk from memory. This was not an issue for the audience and Jason was kept busy presenting information and answering questions for approximately 1'30".

Regarding the Pheasant Release program. Unfortunately I missed the first portion of this presentation while trying to find an alternative option which would allow Jason to use his presentation.

Bottom line, based on my understanding, is the Pheasant Release program will go ahead in 2014 but no decision has yet been made on numbers of birds etc. Starting in 2015 the Pheasant Release Program will be taken over by the Alberta Conservation Association. So it appears the intention will be to have the release program continue but to what extent remains to be seen.

Regarding the discussion on snow geese, the proposal is to institute a daily limit of 50 birds with no possession limit starting this Fall with a Spring season to begin in 2015.

I saw a number of new faces at this meeting so I suspect some of the Forum members came out to enjoy Jason's talk. Always nice to see new faces.

Thanks,
Phil

[diamond k]

Please dont make this a outfitter bashing session.

I am not a bird hunter so i dont know what the harvest levels are currently but 50 birds daily with no possesion limit seems high. Is the something to appease outfitters who's clients want to kill a bunch of birds in a day. I know there is no shortage of snows or Canada's but can the population sustain this type of harvest.

[bigfishen]

Thats one of the main points of his presentation is that they are currently severely overpopulated and are creating a real problem to some of the areas that they inhabit. He mentioned that they are currently trying to find a suitable solution but even with an increased limit they don't believe that this will even begin to curb the population growth.

[FCLightning]

Please dont make this a outfitter bashing session.

I am not a bird hunter so i dont know what the harvest levels are currently but 50 birds daily with no possesion limit seems high. Is the something to appease outfitters who's clients want to kill a bunch of birds in a day. I know there is no shortage of snows or Canada's but can the population sustain this type of harvest.

They have been trying anything and everything North America wide to get folks to help eradicate a large portion of the severely overpopulated white geese that are literally eating many other species out of house and home.

[bobalong]

Please dont make this a outfitter bashing session.

I am not a bird hunter so i dont know what the harvest levels are currently but 50 birds daily with no possesion limit seems high. Is the something to appease outfitters who's clients want to kill a bunch of birds in a day. I know there is no shortage of snows or Canada's but can the population sustain this type of harvest.

I heard the same presentation at Cabelas, and it has nothing to with Outfitters. There are millions of white geese migrating every year, (the majority in the spring are in Sk. Mb. and if I recall Ontario. The birds migrating through Alberta are from a different nesting area, but those populations are growing as well. Sustaining the population is not a concern, they actually want to reduce those numbers by at least 1.5+ million.

Due to the fact that the white geese pull the actual grasses, roots and all out of the ground, they are decimating they range of food, creating large areas devoid of almost any life. The pics he had look like desolate pics I have seen of the moon.

Waterfowl hunter numbers have reduced substantially over the past years, and the white geese numbers have increased dramatically. Another big problem is distinguishing Snow geese from Ross geese, (you can not shoot the Ross geese) so a lot of the hunters and guides are only shooting the blue phase geese because they are easy to identify.

There is lots of info like the link below if you are interested in what the concerns are with the Snow Geese
http://www.afga.org/pdf/2014Conference/Light%20goose%20talk%20for%20AFGA%20AGM%202014.pdf

[joshcat]

I heard the same presentation at Cabelas, and it has nothing to with Outfitters. There are millions of white geese migrating every year, (the majority in the spring are in Sk. Mb. and if I recall Ontario. The birds migrating through Alberta are from a different nesting area, but those populations are growing as well. Sustaining the population is not a concern, they actually want to reduce those numbers by at least 1.5+ million.

Due to the fact that the white geese pull the actual grasses, roots and all out of the ground, they are decimating they range of food, creating large areas devoid of almost any life. The pics he had look like desolate pics I have seen of the moon.

Waterfowl hunter numbers have reduced substantially over the past years, and the white geese numbers have increased dramatically. Another big problem is distinguishing Snow geese from Ross geese, (you can not shoot the Ross geese) so a lot of the hunters and guides are only shooting the blue phase geese because they are easy to identify.

There is lots of info like the link below if you are interested in what the concerns are with the Snow Geese
http://www.afga.org/pdf/2014Conference/Light%20goose%20talk%20for%20AFGA%20AGM%202014.pdf


Very Nicely put.Well done