Canada geese of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge


Category:  Wildlife Science
Linked Publication
Language: English
Author(s): Glen Alan Sherwood
Description: Seney National Wildlife Refuge is located in the east-central portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Cities in the vicinity include Manistique, Newberry, and Munising. The refuge is composed of four broad habitat types which are cropland, upland (brush and timber), marshland, and open water. Twenty-one pools, in which water levels can be controlled, contain most of the open water acreage. The pools range in size from the 27-acre Upper Goose Pen Pool to over 1,000 acres in the Marsh Creek Riverside Dike Complex. The pools receive a constant water supply from the Driggs River, Walsh Ditch, and Marsh Creek through a system of diversion ditches. This study spanned the period from June 15, 1962 through August 1, 1965. Much of the first summer's effort was directed at a familiarization of the pool system, habitat types, former survey and census methods, and in supervision of the goose banding program. Intensive field research was initiated in the spring of 1963. The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife became concerned in 1960-61 when an apparent downward trend of goose populations was continuing. Subsequently, a management study was designed to learn what factors might be causing such a decline. The writer was assigned to the study as a major part of his duties. Objectives: 1. To determine the nesting chronology and reproductive success of the flock. 2. To determine the breeding and brood rearing behavior of the Seney geese, including behavior associated with courtship, nest-site selection, territory and nest defense, intolerance levels, brood defense, and related effects on nesting density. 3. To determine the strength and longevity of pair bonds and family bond relationships. 4. To determine the degree of brood mixing that appeared to occur and survival rates of the mixed versus unmixed broods. 5. To determine the extent and significance of the reproductive effort of two-year-old females. 6. To determine the age and sex structure of the flock and productive potential. 7. To determine the annual relative abundance of yearling birds and their activity on the refuge. 8. To determine the effect of predation on the flock. 9. To determine limiting factors of the available nesting, habitat on the refuge. 10. To determine the role of disease is regulating the flock size. 11. To determine the annual kill and migration patterns.