Two lesser Lesser White-fronted Geese

On Saturday a pair of Lesser White-fronted Geese were found at Nordre Øyeren. I am a man who loves a wild goose chase and LWfG is an even more special species than Taiga Bean Goose with it being the rarest species in Europe (excluding Russia) and the last wild birds follow very well established migration routes from their breeding sites in the far north of Norway to wintering sites in Greece. I should therefore have been out of the door in a heartbeat, but the key word is wild and unfortunately these were never going to be from the proper wild geese (population ca.100 in Europe).

Even though no signs of captivity were seen at the time (they were swimming) it was pretty straight forward to assume they were birds from the Swedish reintroduction program, and this was confirmed the next day when both birds were seen to be wearing plastic coloured bling.

Now, these released geese are a very sore point in Norway but feted as a success story in Sweden. I have previously written a post about this in 2015 and Birdlife Norway have also summed up its view of the status of the reintroductions in this document from 2016. For an opposing viewpoint here is a link to the home page of the Swedish reintroduction project.

In Norway the Swedish birds in addition to being considered an existential risk to the remaining wild birds are considered to be non self-sustaining released and therefore should not appear on your lists (and the ringed birds are releases from captivity so are therefore regarded as category E) whereas no such qualms appear to exist in Sweden.

I am lucky enough to have seen the last remaining European wild birds in Finnmark in 2011 but have not seen any, of any status, since then so had nothing against going for a look this morning. As they hadn’t been reported for a few days I also had the (wild) goose chase experience to look forward to. In the end I easily found a distant large flock of Greylags from the car and in the scope picked out two smaller birds with white fronts. I was able to get a bit closer and get some footage but the Greylags were the most skittish flock I have ever encountered of this species so I had to content myself with views at a distance of 500 metres.

It should also be pointed out that the architect of the Swedish reintroduction program was Lambart von Essen who also stood back the release of (Taiga) Bean Geese in Dalarna which to some (a great?) extent are the likely forefathers of the «Scottish» Taiga Beans. Genetic analysis of these birds would, I think, make for an interesting study.

discovering the Lesser White-fronted Geese (dverggås) at about a kilometres range

I managed to cut the distance to 500m but the flock was surprisingly skittish and I didn't dare go any closer

the gander to the left had a slightly large white "front"

here a yellow colour ring can be seen on the right leg of the female. The video shows the colour rings better

 

4 species

documenting the geese at 500m range

my first Great White Egret (egretthegre) of the autumn. They have come later and in fewer numbers this year than the last couple of years

a flock of Pintail (stjertand)

To Kill a Lesser White-fronted Goose

There is an intra-Scandinavian war (or should that be inter..) going on at the moment and the victims are poor Lesser White-fronted Geese (dverggås). I have closely followed the fortunes of this species since I’ve lived in Norway and it was one my birding highlights to see the remnants of the wild Scandinavian population on their spring resting grounds in Finnmark in May 2011. There are now only around 15 breeding pairs left of the original wild population and the Norwegian Government and Birdlife Norway are spearheading an effort to protect and increase this population that involves efforts on the breeding grounds, wintering grounds and migration route. These birds are extremely vulnerable and just one act of illegal hunting could make a serious dent in the population. Breeding success has also been variable and even though many (red) foxes have been killed on the breeding grounds it seems that predation takes a serious toll on the goslings and it is only in lemming years that there is high survival of goslings. A very informative and up-to-date website summarises this pan-European conservation effort.

As this population is so small and its wintering grounds in Greece well known it is in fact unlikely that many (any?) birds seen in Western Europe are actually wild and they are probably birds from the Swedish reintroduced population which is the source of the battle.

The last breeding birds in Sweden were in the 1989 and with no native population to protect they have chosen reintroduction with the Swedish Hunting Association leading the work ?!? The first reintroductions did actually begin before the species disappeared from Sweden but were made in a different area. This reintroduction also had the goal of getting the geese to migrate to Holland in the winter and thus be safer and this was achieved by releasing the goslings with Barnacle Geese foster parents that already used this flyway. This reintroduction however stopped in 1999 when it was discovered that the birds being used were genetically not pure Lesser White-fronts and actually had DNA from Greater White-fronted Geese.

In addition to not being genetically pure, they are migrating in a way the wild population does not, they are using habitats that the wild population does not (town parks for example) and they also hybridize with Barnacle Geese in Sweden so one really does wonder whether these birds should even be called Lesser White-fronted Geese.

The Swedes though seem determined to continue with reintroductions and from 2006 have imported wild birds from Russia (which hardly has a large enough population to lose any of its own birds) which have been used as breeding stock. Goslings have been released in the Swedish mountains but these birds have shown an amazing inability to join up with the other Lesser White-fronts and have turned up all over the place including Norway and England.

Recently one of the birds turned up with the wild birds in Northern Norway and promptly got itself shot!  See here and here. Not illegally but under the orders of the Norwegian Government and supported by Birdlife Norway who do not want to risk this bird mating with a wild bird and tainting the gene pool and possibly raising youngsters that will want to migrate differently to the rest of the wild population.

The Swedes are up in arms with Birdlife Sweden saying the Norwegians have lost a chance to get new genes into the dwindling population and also a chance that it would help take birds on the safe migration route to Holland thus increasing chances of survival.

The Norwegians are  however indignant that this bird should not be allowed to risk the purity of the wild birds but hang on haven’t birds been released at precisely the site where this bird was shot? You would be hard pressed to find any information on this now although at the time it was widely spoken about and I actually saw one of the released birds in May 2011 and mention it on this very blog. In fact it now seems the Norwegians want to pretend this never actually happened. However this document in English from a Norwegian Govt. Minister shows how proud the Govt was and how Birdlife Norway was a willing participant. How times change and so quickly!

Conservationist often face difficult choices with one species having to be controlled to allow another to recover but it must be very rare for there to be two so different opinions as to the best course of action for one species that one side literally shoots down the others attempt.