DComeaux wrote:
Though Swan Lake NWR's Canada count did, indeed, once rise to 150,000, according to my quick search, it dropped below 100,000 around 1990 and has been steadily declining. Must have been those bastages providing food and refuge up north in Southern Illinois.
But if you want to hear some real short-stopping bitching and moaning, listen to the guys who hunted that once Canada goose Mecca before it went down the crapper. Having hunted there during it's prime, I can tell you it was an eye-popper for this Ohio Valley boy, but that's now long gone. Must have been those bastages up north at Wisconsin's famous Horicon Marsh NWR.
After all, just about everybody in the state of Wisconsin was either bitching about all the birds being held in the Horicon Marsh Zone or how tightly regulated the hunting was within it. But it turns out that even with the success of resident populations (and perhaps in part because of it) a steady decline in Canada numbers has occurred there, as well.
And so it's gone...