Aarhus University Seal

Knowledge from management plan on pink-footed goose to be shared internationally

Research results and experiences from the initiation and implementation of the management plan on pink-footed goose are to be shared internationally to promote research-based management of waterbirds.

Pink-footede goose
In Denmark, the plan and ongoing management cooperation between the four host countries on pink-footed goose will, as one of more initiatives, be implemented in Western Jutland and Northern Jutland through extensive cooperation with local hunters organized in the Danish Hunters’ Association. Photo: Magnus Elander

The plan has been implemented in Denmark as from this year’s hunting season and is aimed to regulate the fast-growing and increasingly damage-causing population of pink-footed goose from about 80,000 to 60,000 individuals. Particularly in Norway the geese cause damage to agricultural crops and threaten vulnerable tundra plants on the Svalbard breeding ground.

Professor Jesper Madsen, DCE - Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, Aarhus University, the coordinator of the plan, has recently been appointed chair of a new global working group, “Waterbird Harvest Specialist Group”. This group is affiliated to Wetlands International and operates in close collaboration with the inter-governmental agreement on conservation of migratory waterbirds, the African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), under the framework of which the management plan for pink-footed goose has been approved.

Jesper Madsen explains that his work as chair of the specialist group will centre on promoting the international coordination of the management of migratory waterbirds, with the clear strategic aim of promoting research-based management on a global scale.

”We have already initiated the work and will in the year to come develop guidelines for the principles on sustainable harvest of waterbirds based, among other things, on the experiences gained from the implementation of the management plan on pink-footed goose. An important aspect is that the population target of the plan also involves a safety net to prevent over-harvesting of the population.”

Population target – a new element

In Denmark, the plan and ongoing management cooperation between the four host countries on pink-footed goose (the Netherlands and Belgium besides Denmark and Norway) will, as one of more initiatives, be implemented in Western Jutland and Northern Jutland through extensive cooperation with local hunters organized in the Danish Hunters’ Association.

One of the means to obtain the desired regulation of the population is optimization and efficient, flexible regulation of the hunting effort in Norway and Denmark during the hunting season (in The Netherlands and Belgium the hunting of pink-footed geese is not allowed). It is the first time in the European history of waterbird management that a population target has been set, and the first time that hunting is used as a tool in international nature management. Better organization of the hunting effort is one of the means to reach this target. At the same time it is important that the hunting is carried out responsibly to avoid wounding. Therefore, training of hunters in good goose hunting practice is an important element of the Danish project.

Jesper Madsen and his colleagues at Aarhus University involved in the project have launched a website: http://kortnaeb.au.dk with information in danish on the management plan; here, news and information will be regularly posted to the hunters and other interested parties.

The international management plan on pink-footed goose is a so-called adaptive plan, which implies that the various initiatives and their effects on the population will be continuously scientifically monitored and evaluated to allow necessary adjustment of the initiatives on a continuous basis.

”The development of the adaptive concept holds great research potential for developing models predicting how the population will respond to initiatives such as increased hunting. The subsequent monitoring will then show whether our predictions were true or false. We will use the results to adjust our hypotheses and models. In a number of years we will hopefully have developed better tools for the advising of the regulating authorities,” says Jesper Madsen.

In August Jesper Madsen visited Svalbard in order to organize, in cooperation with his Norwegian colleagues, the monitoring of the goose impact on the vulnerable tundra system. The increasing number of pink-footed geese causes extensive damage to the tundra flora and the ecosystem as a whole.

“The ecosystem will not entirely disappear, but it may undergo serious degradation,” says Jesper Madsen.

Contact: Professor Jesper Madsen, tel. +45 2944 0204, jm@dmu.dk
             DCE – Danish Centre for Environment and Energy
             Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University

AEWA Pink-footed Goose International Working Group

Wetlands International Waterbird Harvest Specialist Group