When Birds and People Enter into Conflict - The Pink-footed Goose, a Case of Sustainable Species Management

Bonn, 10 November 2015 - The conservation of migratory birds tends to be automatically associated with a struggle against all threats they have to face and that cause their progressive decline. One thinks of the measures taken in order to tackle these threats. But sometimes these conservation actions overreach their effect and the recovery of a species in turn leads to a new challenge. How to manage success? What happens if there are too many of a kind?

Protecting migratory birds can also mean controlling the growth of their number, or even reducing it if there is a clear disequilibrium. As part of our ecosystem, migratory birds need to be managed in a sustainable way; they need to be considered as a part of the whole, and to get along with people.

The Pink-footed Goose is a good case study for the reverse issue. Listed under the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), and many other international conventions and agreements, it has benefited from conservation measures. As a result, its population has increased considerably over past decades, making of it a real conservation success story. Yet its increasing population size has progressively brought them into conflict with socio-economic interests, for example agricultural ones. Hence the Pink-footed Goose became the subject of the first International Species Management Plan based on the principles of adaptive management, developed by AEWA.

Pink-footed Geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) © John Anderson

The majority of goose populations breeding or wintering in Western Europe have increased considerably in numbers during recent decades, thanks to efficient conservation efforts. Geese are regarded as a highly valued recreational resource, admired by birdwatchers and the general public and harvested by hunters in some countries. However, due to their concentration and foraging on farmland, the continued increase in numbers has also given rise to an escalation of agricultural conflict in the wintering and staging areas. In addition, in some Arctic regions, the increasing densities may result in an overexploitation of the vegetation causing long-term degradation of wet tundra habitats.

Increasingly, it has been realized that successful management of these migratory populations requires international collaboration in order to achieve and maintain viable populations, whilst taking into account socio-economic interests. The African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) has looked for means to manage populations that cause conflicts with certain human economic activities and developed an international species management plan for a first test case, the Svalbard-breeding population of the Pink-footed Goose (Anser brachyrhynchus).

Three years ago, the Svalbard-breeding population of the Pink-footed Goose was increasing, became a cause of conflict with agriculture and hunting them was encouraged. The Pink-footed Goose population had grown from ca. 15,000 in the mid-1960s to approximately 60,000 birds in 2012. The population range covers only four countries (Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium) sharing common conservation policies and having well-enforced regulations in place, which is a good prerequisite for the implementation of the plan.

While the intent of this plan was primarily focused on the biological dimension of maintaining the Svalbard Pink-footed Goose in a favourable conservation status, it also recognized a social dimension along with the consequences of wildlife-human interaction. The diverse dimensions of its conservation needed to be addressed. For this purpose, the plan foresees a series of actions, such as maintaining a population size of around 60,000 within a range to prevent the population from collapsing or irrupting. Along with optimizing hunting regulations and practices to regulate the population size if needed in the Range States where hunting is permitted, or ensure sustainable hunting where practised. This is the only way the Pink-footed Goose population and its range can be maintained as sustainable and stable, keeping agricultural conflicts to an acceptable level.

The lessons learned during the past three years have been taken into account in the Guidelines on Sustainable Harvest of Migratory Birds to be discussed and adopted at MOP6.

 

Last updated on 10 November 2015

Type: 
News item
Species: 
Anser brachyrhynchus
Species group: 
Birds