Recently, as I have been visiting my local birding hotspots I wanted to be more intentional about not solely counting what species I was seeing but stopping for a while and watching them do their thing. After reading Joan E. Strassmann’s Slow Birding this seemed like a better way to understand more about the birds I see every day and focus more on the smaller details in ID and behavior that I would possibly miss without careful consideration. At Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, outside of Atlantic City, I spent about an hour with a few different gaggles of Snow Geese. I was, of course, trying to get some good photos but also attempting to recognize some of the information Joan shared about Snow Geese in Slow Birding. One of the things that popped out to me almost immediately was the orange discoloration on some of the Snow Geese. I was aware of the Blue Morph of the Snow goose, but this orange color was new to me and I wanted to learn more.
Snow Geese are such an interesting case for a species doing so incredibly well that there is a clear negative on their environment and they wear that evidence on their plumage. Since 1970, the Snow Goose population has increased 10-fold due largely to the availability of food in their wintering grounds – mainly rice. This dramatic increase in population size has caused sizeable damage to their feeding areas on their breeding grounds – in particular the delicate ecosystem of the Arctic. Leading the US Government to permit spring hunting as a means to control the ever-rising population. According to a 2018 study by Peterson et al, “Snow geese leave a legacy on the land that propagates degradation of habitat …. Over a 35-year period, we documented a 46% reduction in graminoid cover [grasslike plant] and an 84% reduction in shrub cover.” This loss of habitat can be attributed to the explosion of the Snow Goose population during that same time.
The way that a Snow Goose feeds is unlike the Canada Goose and causes more harm to land and directly contributes to the orange coloring on their plumage. According to Ronald Ketter, a volunteer at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, from a 2019 Washington Post Article: “Unlike Canada Geese, which tend to clip off vegetation leaving roots intact, snow geese often rip out plants by the root.” This style of foraging by the Snow Goose leaves this vegetation unable to regrow, unlike the grazing habitat of the Canada Goose. Peterson et al have found no evidence of habitat recovery during their 30-year study.
In 1918, Frederic Kennard wrote for what seems to be the first time in the Auk about this discoloration in the feathers of Snow Geese. The orange coloring on the Snow Goose’s feathers is caused by iron that is dug up while feeding due to their ruthless foraging style. This discoloration, while not harmful to the goose, is an interesting result of the relationship that animals have with nature. There is no correlation that the overpopulation of Snow Geese is causing the land to have more iron and therefore stain the plumage of the Snow Goose since this has been happening for over 100 years (as seen in Kennard’s publication) and assumingly a lot more than that. While that is true, we should understand that this is near constant reminder of the degradation of habitats and what conservation is needed to ensure the future of this habitat and the species that call the Arctic home.
These orange feathers serve as a hand in the cookie jar for what is happening to the Arctic habitat.
