Paul Link is Louisiana Department Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks’s North American Waterfowl Management Plan Coordinator. Number of mid-continental white-fronted geese overwintering in southwestern Louisiana has declined drastically in recent years, and Link’s real-time telemetry studies has enabled a greater understanding of Louisiana specklebellies’ life habits and migrational patterns. What is the scope of this research and what does it entail? What factors could be contributing to decline of overwintering white-fronted geese in southwestern Louisiana? How are concerned hunter-conservationists becoming involved? Link shares a wealth of interesting information with Ramsey Russell about a fascinating topic.
Paul Link Explains Why Wintering White-fronted Geese May Be Declining in Louisiana and Mostly Privately-funded Specklebelly Research To Better Understand This Culturally Important Waterfowl Species
We’re putting together the life cycle, the ecology, of mid-continent white-fronts in order to tie all these little pieces together with wintering habitat selection and cross-seasonal effects. We have these theories that perhaps wintering habitat use, and the winter body condition, has an influence on a bird’s subsequent spring and summer production. We can get all that information and put together an energetics model of the birds. Determine proportionate time spent in each of those habitats. We can then compare and contrast regions within the state and among states to see if white-fronted geese in southwest Louisiana is burning more energy than white-fronts in eastern Arkansas. If those geese up there are acting and behaving differently, if they’re getting less disturbance and there’s more forage, there could be longer-term population level effects for where a white-fronted goose chooses to winter.
Ramsey Russell: Hey guys, thank y’all for joining me for another great Duck Season Somewhere podcast episode. Ramsey Russell, GetDucks. I’m in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on a hot June day. I’m sitting in an office, thank goodness. I’m meeting with today’s guest, Paul Link. Y’all listen up. This is a fascinating story that came to me from an Instagram account follower from down here in Louisiana. I was aware of this, but this is going to be a little bit deeper of a conversation. Consider this: at one time in the not too far back past, southwest Louisiana overwintered 80% of the mid-continent population—which is to say, the Mississippi and Central Flyways’ worth—of specklebelly geese. Eighty percent! Today’s numbers? 18%. What happened? Well, Paul Link will be able to shed a little bit of light, and I think y’all are really going to enjoy this conversation. Paul, how are you today?
Paul Link: Been better, but we’re making it.
Did COVID Affect North American Waterfowl Management?
Ramsey Russell: Has COVID put a stick in your spokes, too?
Paul Link: It has. Not nearly as bad as a lot of my other colleagues. We were right in the middle blue-winged teal trapping season for another research project that we’ve been working on. We’ve spent eight years on that project, primarily looking at avian influenza and how that disease has moved up and down the North American and South American continent. We were able to do our fieldwork. It certainly changed how we do things. We had a lot of social distancing issues to deal with. Group sizes of ten or fewer. We were able to do it. We typically have a lot of college students come down to Louisiana for spring break and help throughout the weekends, trapping, but we were able to keep working and do it. Can’t say the same for a lot of the other states in our flyway, right now. There’s still folks that aren’t allowed back to work. There’s a lot of pre-season duck banding that’s not happening this year.
Obviously, the BPOP, Breeding Population Survey, was cancelled. Lots of wood duck and Canada goose banding operations have been cancelled. It’s interesting times. Our meetings aren’t happening at all, but you wouldn’t think of fieldwork, something like going out and doing a Canada goose drive for banding— You wouldn’t think that would be something that would fall apart due to some of these COVID guidelines, but, unfortunately, there are. There’s a lot of ramifications that I don’t think any of us, a year ago, could have ever foreseen.
Ramsey Russell: Nobody could have seen this, as recently as February or even March, I don’t think. You and I were supposed to get together back in the fall. I was going to participate in some of your specklebelly banding, and our calendars didn’t line up. Then I was going to get to come down here to Louisiana and do some blue-wings. I love blue-winged teal, and I know you’re very active in that. Because of COVID, you couldn’t even get into Louisiana; let alone the group sizes and all those limitations. But here we are. It’s June, and here we are in Louisiana.
Who is Louisiana Waterfowl Biologist Paul Link?
Ramsey Russell: Firstly, Paul, who are you? You’re not from Louisiana.
Paul Link: Nope. I’m from North Dakota. I came to Louisiana about fifteen years ago for grad school at LSU and ended up falling in love with the place. Being a waterfowl person from day one at birth and growing up in the heart of the prairie pothole region in North Dakota— Obviously, my intent at the time was to come down here and see the other side of the flyway, where the birds spent the winter. Obviously, I fell in love with a lot of the aspects of Louisiana. Sportsman’s Paradise. I’ll never forget the first time I did my graduate work on mallards in southwest Louisiana. At the time, the technology was VHF transmitters, which are just a radio transmitter. You have to actually go find the birds. One of those life-changing moments that I had was coming out of the Lake Charles airport in a little Cessna, climbing up to altitude to go look for lost geese, and seeing that marsh in front of me. As you climb up a thousand, two thousand feet, you see this expansive marsh, 35 miles of marsh in between Lake Charles and the Gulf of Mexico. Looking back to the East, as far as the eye can see, there were these big, beautiful, lush wetlands in November that were just full of ducks. Meanwhile, in my home state, all my buddies are ice fishing already and getting the snowmobiles out. This is, obviously, the toughest time of the year for me, these next few months. Dealing with Louisiana hurricane season and the heat and humidity, but, for most of the year, this is a pretty good place to be if you like ducks.
Ramsey Russell: And you grew up duck hunting.
Paul Link: Oh, yeah.
Ramsey Russell: So you’re what I call a hook-and-bullet biologist. That’s what led you down this path.
Paul Link: Yeah, absolutely.
Ramsey Russell: The only thing I do not like at all about Louisiana is I-10. That’s it. Everything else is, like you say, Sportsman’s Paradise. The food’s good. The people are fun. I even like LSU fans. I ain’t gonna lie to you, man. They’re the funnest people I’ve ever been around.
Louisiana Specklebellies (White-fronted Geese)
Ramsey Russell: Anyway, you mentioned Lake Charles, Louisiana and I’ve always marveled that so many name-brand, or recognizable brand, specklebelly calls come from that region. Having hunted down there a few times; it’s a religion. They duck hunt in Louisiana, but specklebellies are their religion. I’d say it exceeds Catholicism for Louisiana. It’s specklebellies. I was down hunting somewhere around Lacassine one time with Bill Daniels, actually, when I heard this story that, in the past, 80% of the mid-continent population of specklebellies used to overwinter in that region, and now just a fraction of those do. They say the numbers are the same, but the relative percent is way different. What’s going on?
Paul Link: Well, you first need to understand the preface that we have one index on white-fronted populations in Louisiana. It’s our midwinter count. It’s just one snapshot. First week in January. It’s the only time we count them. One thing I’ve learned with this project—being out, boots on the ground, literally every day that I can get away from work from about the tenth of October until the last one leaves in March—is that we still get a ton of white-fronts here. I know our numbers—and, perhaps, the trajectory—wouldn’t be the same if we did an early-November count. Then, having seen the migration data, seeing what these geese do— A lot of them get up on the Saskatchewan prairies in September and October, and they come. They overfly all the mid-latitude states, and they come here.
Oftentimes—the first couple years of our work, especially—we had a tremendous opening day effect where there was lots of gun pressure, and the birds moved. We have zone boundaries where geese don’t have to travel very far to get out of the Louisiana Coastal Zone and into an area that’s not being hunted. Then all kinds of other factors came into play with increasing habitat, coming on the landscape later throughout the winter, and the birds actually trickling further back North as winter progresses. It was a really complicated thing to try to wrap my head around at the beginning of the study, that I could go out mid-October in southwest Louisiana and see eighty thousand white-fronts in one field, on one roost, knowing that we’ll fly the entire state the first week of January and not count a hundred thousand throughout the entire state.
That was one of the more critical things for me to wrap my head around, that Louisiana is still critically important for white-fronts at a time of the year when there’s not much other real estate. There aren’t any other options for a lot of these white-fronted geese when they pick up and leave. From the Dakotas on down, they’re coming here. Seeing what’s going on in the southwest landscape— There’s second-crop rice coming off the fields, there’s combines rolling everywhere, and it’s like the buffet table. You can watch the combines. Once you find early water, it’s typically an old teal pump-off that people teal hunt. They’ll leave the water on it, and it just evaporates. If there’s some water remaining, that’s going to be the central hub for a roost.
Then, the white-fronts are just chasing combines when they get here. The landscape is pretty arid. There’s not a lot of options. There’s a lot of standing green rice, and those birds are just bouncing back and forth from rice field to rice field, cleaning up what little waste rice comes out of the back of a combine. You have to understand that, while our numbers on paper look pretty bad, Louisiana is still critically important. White-fronts are still coming here; we’re just not out there counting them when the majority are here. At least as I see it, through the windshield of the truck, we’re not out there on the landscape when it’s most critical for those geese, when they’re first showing up down here.
Mid-Continental Population of Specklebellies (White-fronted Geese)
Mid-Continental Specklebellies (White-fronts) Staging in Canada
Ramsey Russell: I know you travel and do a lot of activities around. Have you ever been to the South Saskatchewan River where all those birds stage in the fall?
Paul Link: Yeah. That’s been one of the more interesting things of this project, is the Peace River Valley. Pretty historic place. It’s one of the first agricultural regions that a lot of those North Slope, Northwest Territory birds stop in. It’s the first barley fields that those birds see after coming across the boreal. So, yeah, I’ve had boots on the ground. I’ve been up there hunting a few times, myself. It’s been pretty eye-opening, seeing the scale at which these birds move across the continent. We’re 5,400 miles away from where a lot of those geese are right now. As we’re sitting here talking today, there’s birds that I caught here that are over 5,000 miles away from here.
Ramsey Russell: Isn’t that amazing? Just looking at a map of the migration, it’s like you’ve got three subspecies of greater white-fronted goose up in the Arctic. They form like an hourglass because they all convene right there around the Alberta-Saskatchewan political boundary. Then they start to spread back out; primarily the mid-continent population, the Central and Mississippi Flyways, but also a little over in the Pacific. It’s interesting to me, as someone that can remember shooting five snow geese back in the day— Now, it’s just a bunch of them. They got a little out of hand. The limit in Louisiana is two; Arkansas, three; but there’s already some of the Pacific populations where the limits are ten in California, ten in Idaho. What I’m seeing, Paul—and maybe you can shed some light on this—is that there’s more white-fronts, now, in Arkansas, and I’m even hearing reports of them being hunted up in Illinois. Places that, historically, they didn’t overwinter.
Mid-Continental Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Population
Ramsey Russell: So is the wintering Louisiana specklebelly population getting bigger or smaller?
Paul Link: Yeah. We’re up around a million white-fronted geese, right now, in the mid-continent population. It annually fluctuates. We’re on two pretty bad production years in a row, here. It’s looking like this summer is going to be a little better for them, but the population still hovers around 800,000 to 1.1 million. The population is doing incredibly well overall. That’s the reason for the expansion of the opportunities, offering more days and more geese. They’re doing well, range-wide, across North America.
Paul Link’s Louisiana Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Research
That’s one of the things I really like about catching and doing research, is the catching part. It’s catch-and-release hunting.
Paul Link: Basically, we’re going to put together the life cycle, the ecology, of mid-continent white-fronts in order to tie all these little pieces together with wintering habitat selection and cross-seasonal effects… That’s one of the lowest-hanging fruits from this project. Identifying the spatial and temporal scale of preferred habitats, the availability of it on the landscape, and then the selection of those Louisiana fields and replicating it across the landscape and providing more of that.
Ramsey Russell: Can you speak a little bit about your research? Because that’s what I really like to hear a lot about. You work for the state of Louisiana as a biologist, but, several years ago, you also started working more in a privately-funded capacity?
Paul Link: Yeah. That’s a kind of a difficult, touchy subject to explain. I’m an administrator, essentially, here at Wildlife and Fisheries. I kind of oversee a habitat-based wetland program, but, obviously, nobody gets into—or shouldn’t get into—this profession to sit in the office all day. It’s what got me into this. Duck banding was the thing that literally changed my life. Talking back with my folks when I was a kid, I was going to be a hunting guide. I figured that’d be the best way to watch as many sunrises as possible, growing up, was to be a guide. But, unfortunately, I don’t have the people skills. I learned pretty early on that I couldn’t handle a lot of the issues that those types have to deal with every day.
One of those life-changing moments— My dad found out about a duck-banding operation at a refuge in North Central, North Dakota, and he called the manager. He said, “Yeah, come on.” It was one of those moments—sitting there, watching the world come alive, watching ducks come running up a bank to a rocket net site platform, and all the chaos that ensued; looking across a net full of ducks—that, holy crap, you can get paid to do this? Unfortunately, I haven’t found that position, a paying position, but I’m at a unique position here. Administratively, I can get my job done, and then, in my free time—oftentimes with the department vehicles and support through federal aid grants and everything—I’m able to do a lot of fieldwork.
We talked about black-bellied whistling duck banding; I’ve banded tens of thousands of black-bellied whistling ducks over the last few years, in my personal time, with an all-volunteer crew of people. As this little—you can jokingly call it my hobby science projects—as they’ve expanded, I’ve taken a lot of capacities and networks with landowners and folks that are interested in answering questions that maybe aren’t necessarily a priority of the flyway or the state. I’ve been able to figure out how to walk that fine line between Paul Link, North American Waterfowl Management Plan Coordinator, and Paul Link, hobby scientist, where we can separate those two job functions. On my personal time and, oftentimes—depending on the project—I have to take my own pickup and make sure I’m not using any department resources.
I’m afforded a lot of opportunities, with the freedom that I have with the administration here. A lot of the projects I’m working on, while they’re not maybe the highest priority of the department, there’s a mutual interest in what’s going on. Especially for species like black-bellied ducks that appear to be doing well, but that we don’t have any real good data for population trends or management for. That’s kind of where the white-fronted goose project started. A lot of these same guys that I’d be trapping wood ducks or mottled ducks on their properties would be asking me, “What’s going on with the specklebellies?” Quite frankly, I didn’t know. We’re going through this rapid technology change. The technology for these tracking devices— Literally, every year it’s improved almost another order of magnitude. Five years ago, a couple of really passionate specklebelly hunters in southwest Louisiana asked what it would take to put some of these tracking devices on geese and find out where they’re going, what they’re doing, how long they’re staying there. All their migration information, breeding success. You can get all that information. They basically told me to throw some numbers at them and let them know how much money they needed to raise to get a project up and running. The next summer, we were off and running. We put eleven transmitters out on birds. We figured out how to catch them. That was a big hurdle.
Historically, all the white-fronts are captured in July and August, in the Arctic, when they’re flightless. They are a bird that demands your respect. They are incredibly smart, especially by the time they get down here. The fields that they use are typically mudflats or barren fields, and they have incredible vision, incredible senses. I’ve trapped sandhill cranes along the Nebraska Platte River, for a couple of springs, with Dave Brandt and Northern Prairie. At the time, I thought sandhill cranes were the epitome of capturing wild birds. That was the toughest species I’d ever caught. We’d bury our nets and rake the det cord down with a screwdriver across the prairie grass, hiding everything. Put cow patties over the top of the launchers and rockets, and used stuffer decoys. Basically, just hide off in brush lines and rocket netted over the top of stuffer decoys. It was incredibly fun. Still the most fun two months of my life I’ve ever had was trapping sandhill cranes.
The white-fronts kind of took that to a whole ‘nother level. They’d never been flighted. White-fronts hadn’t been captured in appreciable numbers in fifty years. Trying to figure out how to catch them down here, knowing that we could go to the Arctic and we could deploy some transmitters, but only 18% of them, theoretically, would show up down here. When you’re looking at a $3,000 transmitter, we knew we had to get them out here. We had to catch these geese that were coming here. That’s one of the things I really like about catching and doing research, is the catching part. It’s catch-and-release hunting. It’s pretty hard to kill some of these geese, to get them within shotgun range, but it’s a whole ‘nother level to get them alive. To get your hands on them and be able to let them go when you’re done. I played around; built a lot of stuff; went through a lot of different net designs trying to figure out how we could throw as big a net as possible, as far as we could, as fast as we could. Tore a lot of stuff up, blew a lot of boxes up. It was a pretty substantial learning curve, but we ended up catching a bunch of birds that first year. Now, we’re getting ready to go into year six.
Ramsey Russell: Year six. I was just fixing to ask how long you’ve been doing that.
Paul Link: Yeah. In fact, we’re bringing on a PhD student and a post-doc this year. We’re expanding our network of collaborators. With Dr. Mitch Weegman at Missouri, we’re going to bring on two pretty powerful folks to help analyze all this stuff. Basically, we’re going to put together the life cycle, the ecology, of mid-continent white-fronts in order to tie all these little pieces together with wintering habitat selection and cross-seasonal effects. We have these theories right now, this many years into the project, that perhaps wintering habitat use, and the winter body condition, has an influence on a white-front’s subsequent spring and summer production. If these birds, down here in the southwest—there’s a lot of disturbance going on down there.
These transmitters have a triaxial accelerometer built on board. So if this is the transmitter, we can tell what it’s doing on that X, Y, and Z axis. We know if the goose is flying, if it’s sleeping, if it’s walking, if it’s tipping and dipping, if it’s preening. We can get all that information, and so you can put together an energetics model of the geese. So you not only know that they’re at this coordinate in this field—and you can go in and identify it as being second-crop rice with ten-inch stubble and a four-inch flood—but then you can also tell what the bird is doing. Their proportionate time spent in each of those habitats. We can then compare and contrast regions within the state and among states to see if a white-front in southwest Louisiana is burning more energy than a white-front in eastern Arkansas. That’s one of the things that we launched into last year, with that expansion of the project into Arkansas with a bunch of other private supporters. If those birds up there are acting and behaving differently, if they’re getting less disturbance and there’s more forage, there could be longer-term population level effects for where a bird chooses to winter. That’s obviously a really complicated thing. Then it gets even further complicated when you’re looking at that same individual for years. That’s another thing that this technology has really enabled us to do, is look at an individual bird across multiple years to see what changes.
What influences where they’re wintering? What influences their fall migration dates? We’ve had birds that we’ve marked down here that have spent the whole winter, have gone offline in the Arctic, and the next winter they go to Arkansas for a couple weeks and then end up in Indiana and Illinois for the entire winter. Why would a bird that was down here in October of the year before never come even close to Louisiana again? Having that same bird making multiple migrations can help to tie in pieces and maybe find some of those explanatory variables for why that geese chose to trickle North and hang out with the Canadas and the snows up North.
At this point, five years into the research, we’ve basically got a few answers about the specific habitat types, the arrival dates, the spring departures. We’ve got a great data set of breeding ecology work. Now we’re trying to look at the fidelity and winter philopatry. It takes more individuals and more years. That’s why we’re pretty excited about this recent expansion to go on for another three years of deployments. These units are scheduled to last between two and three years. On our white-fronted geese that are coming up on two and half years of age, the transmitters are still doing really well. These things have a battery, and batteries have a shelf life to them based on the number of recharge cycles, but they’re still going strong. That’s really encouraging. The geese have high survival. Not a lot of people are targeting our collared geese.
On Not Shooting White-fronted Geese with Collar Transmitters
Ramsey Russell: I know some guys that would unfortunately target them if they saw them coming into the decoys.
Paul Link: Yeah. I’ve got a number of folks, that we’ve talked about earlier, that are managing specifically for them. A lot of them have supported the project monetarily and with access to their property for trapping. One of the guys in southwest Louisiana is an incredible caller. He’s passed on five collared white-fronts that he’s had over the decoys in shotgun range. He’s called off his sports from pulling the trigger on those birds. Then another guy gave me a report, one day, that he had five specks come in, and they shot everything except the collared bird. That was kind of a neat experience, with that bird and her family group. They were all banded, interestingly enough. The four geese that were flying with her were all banded. We saw the effects of what happened when she lost all of her family. She did some really bizarre movements for a couple days, but, amazingly enough, settled right back into the same pattern. She came right back to the same farm.
I’ve got two white-fronted geese, that are on their third year of migration, that nest in the same nest bowl in the North Slope of Alaska and come to the same farm just south of Gueydan, Louisiana.
Paul Link: Since then, we’ve seen a number of other instances where a white-front has made just super erratic movements like that, and we always wonder if it’s a similar type of thing. Some of these birds literally roost on the same spot, on the same farm, year after year after year. I’ve got two geese, that are on their third year of migration, that nest in the same nest bowl in the North Slope of Alaska and come to the same farm just south of Gueydan, Louisiana.
Ramsey Russell: Not just the same parish; the same farm.
Paul Link: The same farm. The same field. We’ve ground-truthed our habitats for three years, and a lot of that was going out and knocking on doors and asking farmers— If we couldn’t see a field that birds were in, we did face-to-face interviews. We got farm records, and we talked to these guys. We wanted to know: If they’re in this field, what did you do to that field? That’s the management implications behind all of this. Me, the simple-minded, muddy boot biologist— If they’re selecting this field, and there’s only 1% of that in the landscape, and a lot of these other guys that are trying to manage for white-fronts don’t know that that’s what’s preferred, then they can’t offer it to them. That’s one of the lowest-hanging fruits from this project. Identifying the spatial and temporal scale of preferred habitats, the availability of it on the landscape, and then the selection of those fields and replicating it across the landscape and providing more of that. I have no doubt that it’s a habitat issue that’s driving most of our decline here. There’s been a lot of changes in rice agriculture here, just in the time that I’ve been here.
What Habitat Changes Drive Number of Specklebelly (White-fronted Geese) and Other Waterfowl Wintering in Louisiana?
I have no doubt that it’s a habitat issue that’s driving most of our decline here. There’s been a lot of changes in rice agriculture here, just in the time that I’ve been here…When [you’re flying aerial surveys] you’re coming across the marsh and you hit the agricultural transition and you’re in rice, you can almost catch your breath. You’re looking up ahead, and you can see the rice coming, and things are going to slow down. You’re going to have time to breathe. Then, when you get up on a crawfish pond—especially crawfish fields that have traps, that have the boat runs that are clearly identified—it’s a ghost town. There aren’t ducks. There aren’t geese. There aren’t water birds.
Ramsey Russell: Been a lot of changes in habitat in all. Not just in Louisiana, but up and down the Mississippi Flyway and in the world at large. The first thing I think of when I think of this part of Louisiana is of the Gulf Coast issues going on that we hear a lot about. The coastal erosion, the sinking land, however they describe the lower Mississippi Delta. I think of how the habitat changed initially from marsh, or semi-permanent marsh, to rice. Then there’s been other changes. Crawfish, for example. That used to be a few folks who went out and drug ditches and caught crawfish, back in the day. It is a multi-billion dollar industry now, and waterfowl eat those little crawfish when they’re babies. What specifically are you seeing? What are you thinking so far, five years into this?
Paul Link: Well, that’s the million dollar question. With the changes in agriculture, with the rice varieties, but also with the way rice is farmed. When I came down here fifteen years ago, everybody was water seeding. Put a flood up, water work a field, fly the rice in, pull the water off, pulse the water back on. Traditional heirloom-variety rice crops. Then we came into the genetically-modified stuff, the Clearfield varieties. Dry-ground farming, drilling your crop in, not bringing the water on and off, as historically. There’s just been a ton of changes in the way rice is farmed. Aquaculture acreage, as you mentioned, has skyrocketed here. In a lot of cases, it’s for the better. There’s a ton of rice farmers out there that wouldn’t be in business right now if it wasn’t for the rice/crawfish aquaculture. They really can’t do one without the other in a lot of instances. It’s the cash crop that keeps them on the land, that keeps them profitable. But, obviously, crawfish is not a preferred white-fronted goose habitat. They’re typically flooded up pretty deep. Very deep.
Ramsey Russell: You were saying earlier that they like the shallower water to where just their feet get wet.
Paul Link: Yeah. They will roost in a crawfish field, but, typically, the crawfishermen want the substrate. They want that stubble. They’re putting cannons and lasers and flags, all kinds of deterrents, out there to keep waterfowl out of there. As well as, obviously, shooting them if they have to.
Ramsey Russell: Aside from specks, do you think those practices would affect duck utilization of those habitats? I know there’s some groups down in that part of the world that are all up in arms about corn up in Missouri, but there could be other things going on right there in their backyard.
Paul Link: Absolutely. It’s the same thing. When we’re flying aerial surveys, Larry Reynolds, who’s been doing this longer than I have, always talks when he’s coming off those transitions— We’ve got North-South transect lines, and when you’re coming across the marsh and you hit the agricultural transition and you’re in rice, you can almost catch your breath. You’re looking up ahead, and you can see the rice coming, and things are going to slow down. You’re going to have time to breathe. Then, when you get up on a crawfish pond—especially crawfish fields that have traps, that have the boat runs that are clearly identified—it’s a ghost town. There aren’t ducks. There aren’t geese. There aren’t water birds. There’s nothing in most of these fields. Again, crawfish is better than nothing. It’s better than sugar cane for waterfowl. It’s one of those double-edged swords.
Ramsey Russell: Isn’t there a lot of sugar cane in that part of Louisiana?
Paul Link: It’s grown exponentially.
Ramsey Russell: Has it capped out, do you think, or is it still expanding?
Paul Link: I think it’s probably still expanding.
Ramsey Russell: Wow. I do like crawfish, but you’ve made me start feeling guilty about eating it as much as I do.
Paul Link: I still eat it, too. Like I say, I’m good friends with a lot of those rice farmers, and it’s keeping them in business. If it wasn’t for the ability to crawfish on some of their acreage, or half of their acreage, they couldn’t keep the farm.
Ramsey Russell: Have they always ratoon cropped, or second-cropped, rice in this part of the world?
Paul Link: Yep.
Ramsey Russell: That’s always happened, and now they’re finding out that they can bring in this aquaculture component as a third crop, really. That’s how they’re able to remain profitable and stay in business.
Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Behaviors Observed
Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Migrational Scale
Ramsey Russell: I follow you on Instagram, and I’m going to be sure that you share that with other folks listening, because they’ll find your information interesting. What are some of the crazy things you’ve seen doing these banding and, especially, these geo-locator studies?
Paul Link: Well, just the scale at which these geese can move across the country is probably the most eye-opening thing to me. We’ve got white-fronted geese that, when they come off the Arctic in the summer—especially those Alaska birds in the fall and, more impressively, in the spring—when they’re sitting there at the Peace River in Alberta, the gamble that they’re preparing— I don’t think a lot of people can grasp the gamble that that bird is making. They’re standing there literally on the ice line. They’ve been fighting that ice getting North, which, physiologically, they often struggle with that. They show up down here, and it’s still 95°. That’s a white-front that you would think doesn’t like the cold. Yet in the spring, they are literally chomping at the bit to get back to the Arctic. They want their nest bowl. They want to be there first. They want to make sure they get the best spot. Sitting there looking at these movements, watching those birds stage up, and then, a year or two later, understanding the physiological consequences to their decision on when we go, when we leave here— They leave not knowing what the ten day forecast is 1,100 miles away, where they’re going. When they leave that Peace River, it’s rocks, trees, and ice. Those birds show up. They’ve got two weeks of standing on the ice when they get there. Every year. Best case scenario, they have to stand there for two weeks. There’s not going to be any green-up. There’s no food. There’s nothing.
When they take off, they’re carrying what they can on them in the form of their fat that they’ve piled back up from eating waste grains on the prairies again. They’re hinging on that. They’re weighing the cost of staying there and fattening up for a few extra days, versus another white-front getting to the choicest habitat ahead of them. They’re weighing all that stuff and seeing the consequences. We’ve had a couple bad years in a row for production. Birds get up there—and it’s not bad if it’s cold, if the ice-out is delayed—but if they get to initiating a nest and then they have a blizzard and can’t stay on their eggs, they’ll lose them. They have to keep them, once they start incubating.
Seeing those trade-offs, those huge decisions that those geese are making, and the ferocity of the climate that those things are facing. These things have on-board weather collection devices on them where they can get percent cloud cover and temperature and barometric pressure and wind speed and everything. You see what these birds are doing. When they leave Alberta, they don’t get above freezing for thirty days, a lot of years. Knowing that there’s no moisture. There’s no green vegetation. They’re on their own from the time they leave. They’re capital breeders, so their females are going to have to lay a heavy clutch of eggs. She’s going to lose a ton of weight.
The gamble that they make— To me, that’s the most fascinating thing. Then, conversely, when they’re coming back through the prairies— The Saskatchewan and Alberta prairies in September and October is a marvelous place. There’s food everywhere. The lakes that they roost on are about as permanent as they come. There’s always going to be a big lake, the Quills or another famous staging area. It’s stable. It’s dependable. The crops have changed quite a bit over the last twenty years, but—
Ramsey Russell: A lot of canola.
Paul Link: Yeah. The peas and barleys. Peas are doing all right in a lot of places, but the barley is not. That’s obviously one of their preferred items, but they leave all that. Most of them leave that in a time of plenty, and they come down here. I’ve often wondered why that is. They’re leaving the land of milk and honey.
Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Migrational Timing
Ramsey Russell: Do you see, and does your data after five years support—? Because I’ve always thought of specks as a photoperiod migrator. It’s like an internal part of their calendars says, “Time to go.”
Paul Link: Yeah, that’s changed a lot. As a kid growing up in central North Dakota where I did, right on the Missouri River, I remember our waterfall openers. If you didn’t kill a white-front in North Dakota on opening weekend, you’d never see or hear another one. I remember being out scouting and hearing birds in the middle of the night; walking outside or sleeping with the windows open at night, and hearing specks going overhead in September. Never see a speck. From November first on, never did you see a speck up there. Now, for the last five years, I’ve killed specks up there when I go back to hunt. They’re with the western prairie Canadas well after ice-up, in the snow. Things are definitely changing. There are specks up there that stay late. They wait until the last throw of winter when the snow gets too deep to forage through. Then, seeing these geese that are wintering in Illinois and Indiana the last few years—that’s a trend that we’ve had every year. There’s been one to four geese that we marked down here that, as soon as they get here, it seems like they turn around and start trickling their way back North. Some of them, even before our hunting seasons even open. It’s hard to explain.
Does Improved Agricultural Harvest Efficiency Affect Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Feeding Patterns?
Ramsey Russell: Well, could that be a function of increased population? Maybe there’s more birds, so there’s a longer window of opportunity that they’re nesting, so you’ve got different stages of age classes or something when it’s time to migrate South? Could it be that?
Paul Link: Yeah. I’m guessing it’s probably food. These combines, they’re getting better and better every year. I’ve gone out behind a combine in a field. Geese— If they start feeding in a field in the morning, they won’t hit it again. That’s it. They’ll have it eaten out by the end of the day. If they get in there at three in the afternoon, there’s about a 50/50 chance that they’ll come back and hit it again the next morning. They’ll eat a field out in a day. These are dry fields. Farmers have pulled the water off. It’s ratoon crop, and you can see individual seeds laying on the ground. Those white-fronts—I’m sure you’ve watched them—get shoulder-to-shoulder, and they’re basically running. Birds at the back of the group, they’ll get up and fly twenty yards ahead.
Ramsey Russell: Like a bunch of little Hoover vacuums combing the field.
Paul Link: Exactly. At that time of the year, rice farming, and farming in general, has gotten clean. These rice fields are clean, clean, clean. There’s nothing in them. 25 years ago, 50 years ago—from talking with a lot of these guys—farming was dirty. There were all kinds of moist-soil plants in amongst all these fields, and there was more food. The combine technology— A lot came out the back of the combine if you didn’t have your screen set right, but now everything is so clean. There’s so little waste rice coming out, and they’re so efficient. There’s so few weeds. There’s so few seeds. There’s not a lot else on the landscape for those white-fronted geese until we start getting some green-up again in those fields.
Ramsey Russell: Then what would be some of the primary plants? Henbit? What would be some of the plants they’re hitting, because I was wondering. It’s not just grain. It’s whatever comes next, the little green-up.
Paul Link: Yeah. They make a pretty stark change, and that’s one of the things our ground-truthing data really showed. They’ll switch to grazing midway through the winter, and it depends on the temps and the moisture and everything. Especially the bean fields and the idle ag fields. The cattlemen don’t really like it, but when guys are starting to fertilize the rye pastures in December and January— Those white-fronted geese will do that. We can see it on the sensor data that I was telling you about earlier, where you can tell what the birds are doing. Early in the fall, they start out doing two-a-days, where they’re going out feeding in the combine tracks in the morning; going back to the water, to the roost, through the heat of the day; and then flying back out in the evening.
They do that for a long time. It’s 95°, so they’re going back for a drink if there isn’t water in the combine tracks of the rice fields. Then at some point, usually midwinter December or so, they switch to grazing. They’re herbivores. They’re just out clipping shoots and various things. At that point, they’re grazing ten hours of the day. If there’s twelve hours of daylight, with their activity on that sensor data, you can see that they’re working. They’re eating bushels of food. Not getting a lot of energy out of it, but that’s what’s available, so that’s what they’re eating.
Does Hunting Pressure on Specklebellies (White-fronted Geese) Changes in Louisiana?
By Sunday afternoon of opening weekend, all of those [marked] white-fronted geese had either left Louisiana or had left the Coastal Zone. Every single one of them, that we marked in the Coastal Zone had left that zone within eighteen hours [of hard opening mornings where duck and goose opened on the same date]. Most importantly, they didn’t come back all winter long.
Ramsey Russell: A changing landscape, which will always continue to change. Does hunting, or hunting pressure, have a role in any of these changes? Can you see it in some of the geo-data? Can you see the role of hunting pressure on bird movement?
Paul Link: Yeah. The first two years of this project, we had what I’ve termed “hard opening weekends,” where our coastal duck and goose season opened on the same date. It’s World War III. I’ll never forget my first winter down here. I was staying in a bunkhouse at Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge. We’d been tracking all night, getting our mallards located, and then we’d get back out in the morning and start ground tracking. I’d get a missing bird list together, and I’d go to the airport and get an assessment, and we’d fly. We’d do that every day and night that the weather allowed.
Well, that opening day— I’ll never forget what that sounded like. We were going to sleep in, that morning, and it was like nothing I’d ever heard. I’d grown up in North Dakota, and had travelled in the upper Midwest and into Canada, hunting, but I’d never heard anything like that before. There wasn’t three seconds where there wasn’t gunfire, a volley of gunfire, for hours. That was a big deal for those geese. The duck and goose hunters are pretty distinct. A duck hunter will shoot a speck 100% of the time, provided the opportunity, but the 15% of our waterfowl hunters that identify as a goose hunter are very different from the duck hunters. Most of them are hunting dry fields. They’re hunting with airbrushed, custom, full-body decoys in blinds that you can’t spot from fifty yards. They tell you, “Step here. Step here. Step here.” They’re picking their spent hulls up like they’re cognizant of everything. These are the most efficient killers.
Ramsey Russell: The times I’ve hunted white-fronted geese down around Cameron, it was so densely brushed that you could wear white shrimping boats and an orange jumpsuit. I actually, well into the morning, had to use my phone light to find my box of shells. It was serious.
Paul Link: Yeah. The first two years, that’s the way our zone and boundary worked. We had hard opening mornings where duck and goose opened on the same date, and it was huge. That first year of our project, we put out eleven units as a pilot. We had seven that we marked preseason. By Sunday afternoon of opening weekend, all seven of those white-fronted geese had either left Louisiana or had left the Coastal Zone. Every single one of them, seven of seven, that we marked in the Coastal Zone had left that zone within eighteen hours.
Ramsey Russell: How big is the zone? What does that mean?
Paul Link: Basically, the southern third of the state was in the Coastal Zone.
Most importantly, they didn’t come back all winter long. We had a joke with my texts that first year, that once they crossed I-10, it was over. There was no turning back. Those white-fronted geese never came back.
Ramsey Russell: Where did they go? North?
Paul Link: We had one white-fronted goose that stopped up in the north and northeast MAV, around the south of Monroe. The others white-fronted geese moved up into the eastern Delta.
Ramsey Russell: Wow. Yeah, that’s a pretty good way.
Paul Link: Yeah. Most importantly, they didn’t come back all winter long. We had a joke with my texts that first year, that once they crossed I-10, it was over. There was no turning back. Those white-fronted geese never came back. The second year, we had 24 units. I think we put 11 of them out, and the same thing happened. We lost 8 of 11 birds. They exited the Coastal Zone by Sunday at sunset of opening weekend. Then, unrelated to that, we had the expansion of opportunity for geese that gave us additional days. To give our hunters opportunity for those additional days, we offered two weeks prior to the duck opener, to the Coastal Zone. White-fronted geese season actually opened up well before duck season.
As I mentioned, about 15% of our waterfowl hunters are goose hunters. Most of those guys went out the third year of our project and hunted. Well, thankfully, the 85% of other waterfowl hunters, the duck hunters, weren’t out there yet. The guns started going off in those intensively-managed areas where guys were hunting geese, but the rest of the landscape wasn’t being hunted, so those geese could go figure things out. They could go over and hang out in front of a guy’s duck blind for a few hours while those guys finished hunting. They stayed here. They were kind of like, “Okay, we’ve got this figured out.” Two weeks later, the duck opener comes. By then, they’d figured out where everything was. The guys were going out days before, brushing their duck blinds, throwing their decoys out, and the White-fronts were kind of like, “Okay. Taking notes. We’ve got this. We’ve got this figured out.”
Opening day of duck season came, and they had it all figured out. Hardly lost any more white-fronted geese in the next few years. That was kind of an accident, that we learned. A hunting disturbance— When it happens like that, when everything opens together and everybody’s out there, there aren’t very many safe places for a bird to go locally. They get up in the air. The guns are just going off everywhere, and they’re just like, “We got to go. We got to go somewhere else.” Whereas, when it opened earlier, there weren’t nearly as many guns going off at the same time. They could kind of keep their bearings and find places to ride it out. They had twelve days to figure out the safe places.
Can Providing Sanctuary Improve Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Hunting?
Paul Link: Most of these big clubs that are successful, as you know, manage sanctuary on their properties. They have places where they do a much better job at regulating disturbance than the inviolate refuges that agencies and the Fish and Wildlife Service and folks like us may have. They’ll provide a place in the middle of their farm where they just leave the waterfowl alone. That’s theirs. That’s their roost. That’s their sanctuary. People like keeping a big hub of white-fronted geese in the middle of their farms. Obviously, a few of them are going to make mistakes and give you opportunities to see and harvest waterfowl. That was one of the biggest and most informative things that we saw. There’s a potential that we can kind of slowly turn these birds on to the hunting pressure. We’re trying to create a mini refuge program, so to speak. Or we can provide these birds early, dependable water, every year, on a landscape that’s pretty dry, and then keep it disturbance free. So when the guns start going off during hunting season, they kind of know, historically, that, “Hey, we can go to this field, and nobody will mess with us.” Then, obviously, they can go forage from there locally. If they get shot at, they’ll come back. They’ve got to have a safe place to rest. That’s the primary thing with everything I’ve radio marked and tracked down here. They have to have some place that they can go do their thing unmolested.
Ramsey Russell: I’ve heard for years people that are, for lack of a better word, anti-refuge. It doesn’t make sense. Man, waterfowl have got to have somewhere they can go be a duck without getting shot at it. It’s critical. Anywhere in the world you go, they’ve got to have somewhere they can just be a duck and do ducky things and not get shot. I can’t remember if it was you or somebody else telling me a story about banding a speck, one time, that swapped flyways. It was just absolutely gone within weeks. Was that you telling me the story, or somebody else?
Paul Link: No, the California guys, the Dixon guys, that have been marking specks, they have that on occasion. A bird that they mark out in the Central Valley of California will go North and come over to this flyway. Some of them have even —Ross’s geese, in particular—come here one winter, and then stayed back the next. For whatever reason, they just hop flyways.
Ramsey Russell: I see. When those white-fronted geese leave Louisiana, do they skip like a rock up to the Arctic? Or do they just fly?
Paul Link: They hop their way North, primarily. If a bird is still here on the 20th of February, they’ll typically jump to the eastern Dakotas on their way. A lot of them, probably 3/4’s of them—by the first of February, they’re chasing the ice line. They’re on their way. They’re going as far North as they can, and then they’re staging up south of the tree line in Prairie Canada. That’s kind of their hub. This year, it was southeast North Dakota. The way the ice and snow line was, southeast North Dakota had our white-fronted geese for over thirty days, just stacked up there waiting for the snow to melt. But most years, it’s Prairie Canada. Most falls, it’s the same. It’s thirty days from the time they show up. If they get there in late August, it’s usually late September when they come back. So it seems like in thirty days—good, bad, or ugly—they can acquire what they need to make that movement North or South.
Ramsey Russell: That’s crazy. That is absolutely amazing. I’ll tell you, the whole migratory process is just amazing, how those white-fronts will move and do that kind of stuff.
Hunter-related Mortality of Collared Research Specklebellies (White-fronted Geese)
Ramsey Russell: How many of your collared white-fronted geese do get shot? You and your private landowner partners are spending a lot of time and money on your research birds. How many get shot?
Paul Link: It’s about 20%. It’s not unreasonable. Our annual estimates from harvest are around 85% or so survival, 10-12% for hunting mortality. So it’s higher, but, obviously, these things are wearing a collar. They’re uncoated. Ours are gray. Some people put brown on, but we try to make them as cryptic as we can so they’re hard to see. Every year, I’ll have one or two that get shot off-roads. They’re either not picked up or discarded. We had one shot in Arkansas this spring, three days after the goose season closed. The guy admitted what he did. He’s a lifelong hunter. He saw it, didn’t know what it was, and made a series of bad decisions. We got the collar back from him. Most people are pretty good about it. They understand what we’re trying to do.
Ramsey Russell: The geo-marker is in the collar, not the leg?
Paul Link: Correct. The collars we’re using, they’re uncoated. They have three solar panels on them. It’s all incorporated into the collar. It’s a pretty smooth device. We also band them.
Private landowners that I’ve spoken to over the past few months are farming, but they’re laying aside some pretty significant private contributions into habitat, into some of these rest areas Paul is talking about. Now, they’re coming in and digging elbow-deep in their own pockets and funding these expensive tracking collars they’re putting on these white-fronted geese, too.
Ramsey Russell: One thing I wanted to bear out to people listening, that really impressed me about what he calls his hobby experiments, is that it’s privately funded. It’s a lot of private landowners in southwest Louisiana and parts of Arkansas, probably elsewhere. Clubs and landowners that just are digging elbow-deep into their own pockets and funding this research. I know the state and federal government is also doing some activities along with him, but I just wanted to bear out— We always hear about the importance of hunting in conservation, hunters as conservationists. But, man, this is, to me, an extreme level. A lot of these private landowners that I’ve spoken to over the past few months are farming, but they’re laying aside some pretty significant private contributions into habitat, into some of these rest areas Paul is talking about. Now, they’re coming in and digging elbow-deep in their own pockets and funding these expensive trackers they’re putting on these white-fronts, too. Paul, where do you go from here? After five years, what questions do you want to answer? What directions have you started taking now, after five years of getting your bearings on all this?
The next big thing for us now, to look at both the differences in the regions that these white-fronted geese are wintering and the habitat selection. Looking at what consequences that has on other, subsequent, vital rates. Does where a white-front chooses to winter have an effect on its breeding success five months later? That’s the kind of information that this technology is finally allowing us to look at.
Paul Link: Well, like we spoke about prior to starting the podcast, the cross-seasonal effects. That’s kind of the next big thing for us now, to look at both the differences in the regions that these white-fronted geese are wintering and the habitat selection. Looking at what consequences that has on other, subsequent, vital rates. Does where a white-front chooses to winter have an effect on its breeding success five months later? That’s the kind of information that this technology is finally allowing us to look at. To look at the same individual white-fronted goose, theoretically, up to three breeding seasons. To see, say, if she winters in southwest Louisiana in year one, does this on her spring migration, goes up and nests in the Arctic with— We can tell, based on their movements, whether they’re successful in nesting. We don’t know recruitment unless we would go get a visual on that bird after she shows back up on the prairies, but there’s too many variables there with loss of young after fledging. Then in year two, if she chooses to winter in a different region, if she has a different spring migration strategy and a different subsequent breeding effort; basically, trying to tie in those different cross-seasonal effects with fall staging areas, wintering areas, spring migration, and subsequent reproduction.
We know for almost all waterfowl species that the most critical time period, the most critical season, is that breeding season window. That’s kind of where we’re headed now; answering these complicated questions that require longevity. You need a unit to last multiple breeding seasons to answer those types of questions. Some white-fronted geese mate, and that’s another thing that we don’t really talk about. Some of these white-fronted geese might be three years old, some of them might be seventeen years old. We know this because I’ve recaptured geese before that have been wearing bands. We’ve replaced a number of bands. Nobody really knows what age they are.
We assume that every able-bodied bird in good enough body condition, when they leave Prairie Canada in the spring, is going to go nest. Mitch Weegman’s learning, with the Greenland population of white-fronted geese, that only about a third of those white-fronts even attempt to nest. Even when they’re in the same body condition, year after year, only a third of them even attempt to nest. Now, we think our mid-continent white-fronted geese are different. We think that they’re going to try every year, but the Arctic is a pretty hostile place most years. It really depends on spring weather and ice-out and everything, but we think most of our white-fronted geese go at it. Every year, they attempt to nest. Obviously, they have highly variable success rates and production, but that’s kind of where we’re heading. It’s the really complicated stuff that’s left.
We’ve got good drivers on the biometrics of what a spring and fall migration look like. We know how many kilocalories of energy it takes to make those movements. We know that when they migrate they’re between 850 and 7,000 feet above sea level, and they’re traveling between 55 and 70 miles per hour. We’ve got all that. Now, it’s trying to tie in all these complicated things through a longer period of time. That’s where we’re heading with the project right now.
Ramsey Russell: Paul, I really appreciate your explanations and discussion of your research here on these white-fronted geese, or specklebellies down here in southwest Louisiana and abroad. Is there anything I didn’t ask that you can think to say?
Paul Link: Well, we’ve been from one end of the flyway to the other. I think we’ve pretty well covered white-fronted geese.
Ramsey Russell: We’ve covered it. How can people connect with you on social media?
Paul Link: Well, our Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries foundation has a website. That’s lawff.org/waterfowl. They’ve got some pages that highlight the three projects that we’re currently working on. They’ve got some informational sheets so that you can see what our methods are, what our white-fronted goose research objectives are, the main questions, the need for why we’re doing what we’re doing. Then, also, a donate feature where they can make a donation if they choose to support the projects. Again, that’s been the grassroots of all these projects. A lot of guys are reaching in, pulling out a $20 bill—some of them thousands of —but it’s a grassroots effort. Hunters and sportsmen that are interested in these Louisiana white-fronted geese, that love these specks as much as—or sometimes, in some cases, even more than—me, they’re driving this stuff. They’re helping us collect the data to improve our understanding, to provide better places for these white-fronted geese, and help us try to better understand what’s going on.
Ramsey Russell: That’s a great way to be involved. What is your Instagram account, where you, a lot of times, post some of your data and photos?
Paul Link: It’s @plink_the_bander. That’s my Instagram. I’ve been a little too busy here, the last few weeks, to be updating folks, but this is the most important time of the year. As we sit down here where it’s 95º, those things that those white-fronted geese and those mallards and those blue-wingeds and gadwalls and everything else that we hold near and dear to us— This is the month, now. This is the thirty-day window where everything important to how our falls are going to go is happening. I’ll be trying to get a little more active on there. There’s a lot of cool nesting movements and stuff going on right now. It’s a good opportunity for a lot of folks to think about what’s going on in the off-season with these birds, to kind of keep them dialed-in on what’s important for ducks and geese.
Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. @plink_the_bander. Y’all check it out. He posts some really cool stuff when he’s doing this banding, and I really like some of the map data you post of how that bird’s moving, how far that bird’s moved. It’s just amazing stuff to me. Y’all check out the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation website he told you about if you’d like to become actively involved, yourself, in some of this research. Guys, thank y’all for listening to Duck Season Somewhere podcast. See you next time.
Paul Link ni Louisiana Idara ya Wanyama wa Pori, Uvuvi na Hifadhi ya Amerika ya Kaskazini Waterfowl Management Plan Mratibu. Idadi ya nyigu wa katikati ya bara wanaokaa kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana imepungua sana katika miaka ya hivi karibuni, na masomo ya wakati halisi ya telemetry ya Link yamewezesha uelewa mkubwa wa tabia za maisha na mifumo ya uhamiaji ya Louisiana specklebellies. Utafiti huo unahusisha nini na unahusisha nini? Ni mambo gani yanayoweza kusababisha kupungua kwa idadi ya bata-mwitu wanaoishi wakati wa majira ya baridi kali kusini-magharibi mwa Louisiana? Wanyama-mwitu wanaohusika na uhifadhi wa mazingira wanahusikaje? Link anashiriki utajiri wa habari za kuvutia na Ramsey Russell kuhusu mada ya kuvutia. Paul Link anaelezea kwa nini hibernating White-fronted Geese inaweza kuwa kupungua katika Louisiana na zaidi ya kibinafsi-financed Specklebelly Utafiti wa kuelewa vizuri hii utamaduni muhimu Waterfowl Spishi Sisi ni kuweka pamoja mzunguko wa maisha, ikolojia, ya katikati ya bara nyeupe-fronted ili kufunga vipande vyote hivi kidogo pamoja na hibernating habitat uteuzi na athari msalaba wa msimu. Kwa hivyo, kuna nadharia kwamba matumizi ya makazi ya majira ya baridi kali, na hali ya mwili wa majira ya baridi kali, ina ushawishi juu ya uzalishaji wa majira ya kuchipua na majira ya joto ya ndege. Tunaweza kupata habari hizo zote na kuunda mfano wa nishati ya ndege. Chagua wakati unaopaswa kutumiwa katika kila moja ya maeneo hayo. "Kisha tunaweza kulinganisha na kulinganisha mikoa ndani ya jimbo na kati ya majimbo ili kuona kama geese nyeupe-juu ya magharibi ya Louisiana ni kuchoma nishati zaidi kuliko nyeupe-juu ya mashariki ya Arkansas. """ Ikiwa wale bata-mbweha huko juu wanafanya na kujiendesha tofauti, ikiwa wanapata usumbufu mdogo na kuna chakula zaidi, kunaweza kuwa na athari za muda mrefu kwa kiwango cha idadi ya watu kwa mahali ambapo bata-mbweha mweupe huchagua majira ya baridi. "Mimi na rafiki yangu, ""Ramsey Russell,"" tunashukuru kwa kushirikiana na sisi katika kipindi kingine cha podcast cha ""Duck Season Somewhere.""" Ramsey Russell, GetDucks. Mimi niko Baton Rouge, Louisiana, siku ya joto ya Juni. Mimi nina kukaa katika ofisi, shukrani kwa Mungu. Mimi ni kukutana na mgeni wa leo, Paul Link. Ninyi nyote sikilizeni. Hii ni hadithi ya kuvutia ambayo ilikuja kwangu kutoka kwa mfuasi wa akaunti ya Instagram kutoka hapa chini huko Louisiana. Nilikuwa najua hii, lakini hii itakuwa kidogo zaidi ya kina ya mazungumzo. Kwa mfano, katika kipindi cha miaka ya hivi karibuni, kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana ilikuwa na asilimia 80 ya idadi ya watu wa kati ya bara, yaani, Mississippi na Central Flyways, wenye thamani ya speckle-belly geese. Asilimia themanini! Nambari za leo? 18% ya asilimia. Ni nini kilichotukia? Paul Link ataweza kutoa mwanga kidogo, na nadhani nyote mtafurahia mazungumzo haya. Paul, unaendeleaje leo? Paul Link: Imekuwa bora, lakini sisi ni kufanya hivyo. Je, COVID-19 imeathiri uhifadhi wa ndege wa majini wa Amerika Kaskazini? "Ramsey Russell: ""Je, COVID imeweka fimbo katika spokes zako, pia?""" Paul Link: Ni kweli. Si mbaya kama wenzangu wengine wengi. Tulikuwa katikati ya msimu wa kuvua teal yenye mabawa ya bluu kwa ajili ya mradi mwingine wa utafiti ambao tumekuwa tukifanya kazi. Tumechukua miaka minane katika mradi huo, hasa kuangalia mafua ya ndege na jinsi ugonjwa huo umehamia juu na chini ya bara la Amerika Kaskazini na Amerika Kusini. Tulikuwa na uwezo wa kufanya kazi yetu ya shambani. Kwa hakika ilibadili jinsi tunavyofanya mambo. Tulikuwa na masuala mengi ya kutenganisha kijamii ya kushughulikia. Ukubwa wa kikundi cha kumi au chini. Tuliweza kufanya hivyo. Kwa kawaida, wanafunzi wengi wa chuo kikuu huja Louisiana kwa likizo ya spring na kusaidia katika mwisho wa wiki, trapping, lakini tuliweza kuendelea kufanya kazi na kufanya hivyo. Haiwezi kusema sawa kwa ajili ya mengi ya majimbo mengine katika njia yetu ya ndege, sasa hivi. Bado kuna watu ambao hawaruhusiwi kurudi kazini. Kuna mengi ya kabla ya msimu duck banding kwamba si kutokea mwaka huu. Kwa mfano, BPOP (Breeding Population Survey) ni utafiti wa idadi ya watu wa jamii ya watu. Kazi nyingi za kuunganisha bata wa mbao na bata wa Kanada zimefutwa. Ni nyakati zenye kupendeza. "Mikutano yetu haifanyi kazi kabisa, lakini huwezi kufikiria kazi ya shambani, kitu kama kwenda nje na kufanya gari la Canada goose kwa banding. ""Huwezi kufikiria kwamba itakuwa kitu ambacho kitatoweka kwa sababu ya baadhi ya miongozo hii ya COVID, lakini, kwa bahati mbaya, kuna." Kuna mengi ya matokeo ambayo sidhani yeyote kati yetu, mwaka mmoja uliopita, angeweza kutabiri. Ramsey Russell: Hakuna mtu angeweza kuona hii, kama hivi karibuni kama Februari au hata Machi, sidhani. Wewe na mimi walikuwa wanatarajiwa kupata pamoja nyuma katika vuli. Nilikuwa na kwenda kushiriki katika baadhi ya specklebelly banding yako, na kalenda yetu hakuwa mstari juu. "Kisha, mimi naenda Louisiana na kufanya ""Blue Wings.""" Ninapenda bluu-winged teal, na najua wewe ni hai sana katika kwamba. Kwa sababu ya COVID, huwezi hata kuingia Louisiana; wasije wakaacha ukubwa wa kikundi na mapungufu yote hayo. Lakini tuko hapa. Ni Juni, na tuko hapa Louisiana. Ni nani Paul Link, mtaalamu wa viumbe wa majini wa Louisiana? "Ramsey Russell: ""Ninajua kwamba mimi ni mtu wa kwanza katika familia ya Paul." Wewe si kutoka Louisiana. Paul Link: La hasha. Mimi ni kutoka North Dakota. Nilifika Louisiana miaka kumi na tano iliyopita kwa ajili ya shule ya kuhitimu katika LSU na kuishia kuanguka katika upendo na mahali. Kuwa mtu wa ndege wa maji kutoka siku ya kwanza ya kuzaliwa na kukua katika moyo wa eneo la mashimo ya prairie huko North Dakota... Ni wazi, nia yangu wakati huo ilikuwa kuja hapa na kuona upande mwingine wa njia ya kuruka, ambapo ndege walitumia majira ya baridi. Kwa kweli, nilipenda sana sehemu nyingi za Louisiana. Paradiso ya Wanariadha. Sitasahau kamwe mara ya kwanza nilipofanya kazi yangu ya kuhitimu juu ya mallards kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana. Wakati huo, teknolojia ilikuwa VHF transmitters, ambayo ni tu redio transmitter. Lazima uende kwa kweli uwapate ndege hao. "Mmoja wa matukio hayo ya kutisha sana ni wakati nilipokuwa nikiondoka uwanja wa ndege wa Lake Charles nikiwa kwenye ndege ndogo ya Cessna, nikipanda juu ya ardhi ili kutafuta bata-mbuzi waliopotea, na nikaona mabwawa mbele yangu.""" Katika eneo la milima ya juu, unaweza kuona eneo la mabwawa la 35 maili kati ya Ziwa Charles na Ghuba ya Mexico. Katika sehemu ya mashariki ya nchi, kama vile macho yanaweza kuona, kulikuwa na maeneo makubwa, mazuri, ya mvua ya majani ya Novemba ambayo yalikuwa yamejaa bata. Wakati huo huo, katika jimbo langu la nyumbani, marafiki wangu wote tayari ni uvuvi barafu na kupata snowmobiles nje. Hii ni, kwa wazi, wakati mgumu zaidi wa mwaka kwangu, miezi michache ijayo. Kwa sababu ya msimu wa vimbunga wa Louisiana, joto na unyevu, ni mahali pazuri pa kukaa. Ramsey Russell: Na ulikua ukiwinda bata. Paul Link: Oh yeah. Ramsey Russell: Kwa hiyo wewe ni kile ninachoita mtaalamu wa biolojia wa ndoano na risasi. Hiyo ndiyo iliyokuongoza kwenye njia hii. Paul Link: Ndiyo, bila shaka. "Ramsey Russell: ""Ninachokipenda zaidi ni Louisiana." Hiyo ni hivyo. Vitu vingine vyote ni, kama unavyosema, Paradiso ya Wanariadha. Chakula ni nzuri. Watu ni wenye kufurahisha. Mimi pia kama mashabiki LSU. Mimi si gonna uongo na wewe, mtu. Wao ni watu funniest nimekuwa milele karibu. Louisiana Specklebellies (White-fronted Geese) Ramsey Russell: Kwa vyovyote vile, ulitaja Ziwa Charles, Louisiana na siku zote nimeshangazwa kwamba majina mengi ya bidhaa, au bidhaa zinazotambuliwa, simu za specklebelly zinatoka katika mkoa huo. Baada ya kuwinda huko chini mara chache; ni dini. Wao kuwinda bata katika Louisiana, lakini specklebellies ni dini yao. Ningesema ni zaidi ya Ukatoliki kwa Louisiana. Ni specklebellies. Nilikuwa nikivua karibu na Lacassine wakati mmoja na Bill Daniels, wakati niliposikia hadithi hii kwamba, zamani, 80% ya idadi ya specklebellies ya kati ya bara ilitumia kuhamia eneo hilo, na sasa ni sehemu ndogo tu ya wale wanaofanya. Wanasema nambari ni sawa, lakini asilimia ya jamaa ni njia tofauti. Ni nini kinachoendelea? "Mwanzoni, tulikuwa na ""mfano wa watu wenye nywele nyeupe"" katika Louisiana." Ni kuhesabu yetu katikati ya majira ya baridi. Ni picha moja tu. Juma la kwanza la Januari. Ni wakati pekee sisi kuhesabu yao. Jambo moja nimekuwa kujifunza na mradi huu - kuwa nje, viatu juu ya ardhi, kihalisi kila siku kwamba naweza kupata mbali na kazi kutoka kuhusu kumi ya Oktoba mpaka mwisho moja kuondoka katika Machi - ni kwamba bado kupata tani ya nyeupe-mzizi hapa. Najua idadi yetu - na, labda, trajectory - haingekuwa sawa kama sisi alifanya mapema Novemba kuhesabu. Kwa mfano, katika maeneo ya kusafiri, kuna aina ya gesi ya Saskatchewan ambayo huja katika majira ya joto ya Oktoba na Septemba. Wao kuruka juu ya majimbo yote ya latitudo ya kati, na wao kuja hapa. Mara nyingi - miaka michache ya kwanza ya kazi yetu, hasa - tulikuwa na athari kubwa ya siku ya ufunguzi ambapo kulikuwa na shinikizo kubwa la bunduki, na ndege walihamia. Tuna mipaka ya eneo ambapo bata-bukini hawahitaji kusafiri mbali sana ili kutoka eneo la pwani la Louisiana na kuingia katika eneo ambalo halina uwindaji. Kisha aina zote za mambo mengine yaliingia katika mchezo na kuongezeka kwa makazi, kuja kwenye mazingira baadaye wakati wa majira ya baridi, na ndege kwa kweli trickling zaidi nyuma Kaskazini kama majira ya baridi inaendelea. """Ilikuwa ni jambo gumu sana kujaribu kuzunguka kichwa changu mwanzoni mwa utafiti, kwamba ningeweza kwenda katikati ya Oktoba kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana na kuona pande 80,000 za nyeupe katika uwanja mmoja, kwenye kichaka kimoja, nikijua kwamba tutasafiri jimbo lote wiki ya kwanza ya Januari na sio kuhesabu mia moja katika jimbo lote." Hiyo ilikuwa moja ya mambo muhimu zaidi kwa ajili yangu kuzunguka kichwa changu, kwamba Louisiana bado ni muhimu sana kwa mbele nyeupe wakati wa mwaka wakati hakuna mali isiyohamishika nyingine nyingi. Hakuna chaguzi nyingine kwa ajili ya mengi ya haya white-fronted geese wakati wao kuchukua juu na kuondoka. Kutoka Dakota chini, wao ni kuja hapa. Kuona nini kinaendelea katika mazingira ya kusini magharibi <unk> Kuna mchele wa mazao ya pili unakuja kutoka mashamba, kuna combines rolling kila mahali, na ni kama meza ya buffet. Unaweza kutazama mchanganyiko. Mara baada ya kupata maji ya mapema, ni kawaida ya zamani teal pampu-off kwamba watu teal kuwinda. Wao 'll kuondoka maji juu yake, na ni tu evaporates. Ikiwa kuna maji machache yaliyobaki, hiyo itakuwa kitovu cha katikati cha mahali pa kulala. Kisha, mbele nyeupe ni tu kufuatilia kuchanganya wakati wao kupata hapa. Eneo hilo ni kavu sana. Hakuna chaguzi nyingi. Kuna mchele mwingi wa kijani unaosimama, na ndege hao wanaruka tu nyuma na mbele kutoka shamba la mchele hadi shamba la mchele, wakisafisha mchele mdogo wa taka unaotoka nyuma ya mchanganyiko. """Lazima uelewe kwamba, wakati idadi yetu kwenye karatasi inaonekana mbaya sana, Louisiana bado ni muhimu sana." White-mzunguko bado kuja hapa; sisi tu si nje huko kuhesabu yao wakati wengi ni hapa. Angalau kama ninavyoona, kupitia kioo cha mbele cha lori, hatuko nje kwenye mandhari wakati ni muhimu zaidi kwa wale bata-bukini, wakati wanaonekana hapa chini kwa mara ya kwanza. Miongoni mwao ni Specklebirds, White-fronted Geese, na Mid-Continental Specklebirds, ambao wanaishi katika maeneo ya mashariki ya Canada, na wanajulikana kwa sababu ya shughuli zao za kusafiri. Je, umewahi kwenda South Saskatchewan River ambapo ndege wote hatua katika vuli? Paul Link: Ndio. Hiyo imekuwa moja ya mambo ya kuvutia zaidi ya mradi huu, ni Bonde la Mto wa Amani. Mahali pazuri pa kihistoria. Ni moja ya mikoa ya kwanza ya kilimo ambayo mengi ya ndege hao North Slope, Northwest Territory kuacha katika. Ni mashamba ya kwanza ya shayiri ambayo ndege hao huona baada ya kuvuka eneo la kaskazini. Kwa hiyo, ndiyo, nimekuwa na viatu ardhini. Mimi mwenyewe nimekuwa huko juu kuwinda mara chache. Imekuwa wazi sana, kuona kiwango ambacho ndege hawa husafiri katika bara hilo. Kwa mfano, kuna watu 8,500 ambao wanaishi karibu na eneo ambalo huenda wakawa na vifaranga wengi. """Kama tunavyozungumza leo, kuna ndege ambao nimewakamata hapa ambao wako umbali wa maili zaidi ya 5,000 kutoka hapa." Ramsey Russell: Je, si jambo la ajabu? Kuangalia tu ramani ya uhamiaji, ni kama una aina tatu za goose kubwa nyeupe-fronted juu katika Arctic. Mzunguko wa saa za mchanga ni mstari wa mstari wa mstari wa Alberta-Saskatchewan. "Kisha wanaanza kuenea tena; hasa idadi ya watu wa kati ya bara, njia za kuruka za Kati na Mississippi, lakini pia kidogo zaidi katika Pasifiki. """ Ni ya kuvutia kwangu, kama mtu ambaye anaweza kukumbuka risasi tano theluji geese nyuma katika siku. Sasa, ni tu kundi la yao. Walikuwa kidogo nje ya udhibiti. Kiwango katika Louisiana ni mbili; Arkansas, tatu; lakini tayari kuna baadhi ya idadi ya Pasifiki ambapo mipaka ni kumi katika California, kumi katika Idaho. Kile ninachoona, Paul - na labda unaweza kutoa mwanga juu ya hili - ni kwamba kuna mbele nyeupe zaidi, sasa, huko Arkansas, na hata nasikia ripoti za kuwinda huko Illinois. Maeneo ambayo, kihistoria, hawakuishi wakati wa majira ya baridi kali. Kwa mfano, katika eneo la Louisiana, idadi ya specklebellies ya majira ya baridi kali inazidi kuongezeka. Paul Link: Ndio. Sisi ni juu ya karibu milioni moja nyeupe-fronted geese, sasa hivi, katika idadi ya kati ya bara. Inabadilika-badilika kila mwaka. Sisi ni juu ya miaka miwili pretty mbaya ya uzalishaji mfululizo, hapa. Inasemekana kuwa mwaka huu wa joto itakuwa bora zaidi kwa ajili yao, lakini idadi ya watu bado inazunguka 800,000 hadi 1.1 milioni. Kwa ujumla, idadi ya watu inaendelea vizuri sana. Hiyo ni sababu ya upanuzi wa fursa, kutoa siku zaidi na geese zaidi. Wao ni kufanya vizuri, mbalimbali-upana, katika Amerika ya Kaskazini. Paul Link's Louisiana Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Utafiti Hiyo ni moja ya mambo mimi kweli kama kuhusu kukamata na kufanya utafiti, ni sehemu ya kukamata. Ni uwindaji wa kukamata na kuachilia. "Mwanzoni, tulikuwa na mpango wa ""kuunganisha mzunguko wa maisha, ikolojia, ya pande nyeupe za bara la kati ili kuunganisha vipande hivi vidogo pamoja na uteuzi wa makazi ya majira ya baridi na athari za msimu wa msalaba"" - moja ya matunda ya chini zaidi kutoka kwa mradi huu." Kuamua kiwango cha nafasi na muda wa makazi ya kupendwa, upatikanaji wake katika mazingira, na kisha uteuzi wa mashamba hayo ya Louisiana na kuiga katika mazingira na kutoa zaidi ya hayo. Ramsey Russell: Unaweza kusema kidogo kuhusu utafiti wako? Kwa sababu hiyo ni nini mimi kweli kama kusikia mengi kuhusu. Alifanya kazi katika jimbo la Louisiana kama mwanabiolojia, lakini miaka kadhaa iliyopita, alianza kufanya kazi katika nafasi ya kibinafsi. Paul Link: Ndio. Hiyo ni aina ya vigumu, mada nyeti kueleza. Mimi ni msimamizi, kimsingi, hapa katika Wanyama wa Pori na Uvuvi. Mimi aina ya kusimamia mazingira-msingi wetland mpango, lakini, dhahiri, hakuna mtu anapata katika <unk> au haipaswi <unk> kupata katika <unk> taaluma hii kukaa katika ofisi siku nzima. Ni nini got mimi katika hii. Kuunganisha duck na bands ni moja ya mambo ambayo yamebadilisha maisha yangu. Nilipokuwa na umri wa miaka kumi na mbili, wazazi wangu waliniambia kwamba ningekuwa kiongozi wa wawindaji. Nilidhani kwamba njia bora ya kutazama machweo mengi iwezekanavyo, kukua, ilikuwa kuwa mwongozo. Lakini, kwa bahati mbaya, sina ujuzi wa watu. Nilijifunza mapema sana kwamba sikuweza kushughulikia masuala mengi ambayo watu hao wanakabili kila siku. Moja ya nyakati hizo za kubadilisha maisha... Baba yangu aligundua kuhusu operesheni ya kuunganisha bata katika makazi ya North Central, North Dakota, na akamwita meneja. Alisema, <unk>Ndio, hebu.<unk> Ilikuwa moja ya nyakati hizo <unk>kukaa huko, kuangalia dunia kuja hai, kuangalia bata kuja mbio juu ya benki kwa jukwaa roketi mtandao tovuti, na machafuko yote ambayo yalitokea; kuangalia katika mtandao kamili ya bata <unk>kwamba, mtakatifu shit, unaweza kupata kulipwa kufanya hili? Kwa bahati mbaya, sijaipata nafasi hiyo, nafasi ya kulipa, lakini niko katika nafasi ya kipekee hapa. Kimsingi, ninaweza kufanya kazi yangu, na kisha, katika muda wangu wa bure - mara nyingi na magari ya idara na msaada kupitia ruzuku ya misaada ya shirikisho na kila kitu - nina uwezo wa kufanya kazi nyingi za shambani. Kwa mfano, katika kipindi cha miaka ya hivi karibuni, nimekuwa nikifanya banding kwa maelfu ya bata weusi wenye tumbo nyeusi, na kwa muda wangu binafsi, na wafanyakazi wa kujitolea. "Kama hii kidogo - unaweza kwa utani kuiita ""mipango yangu ya sayansi ya burudani"" - kama wamepanuka, nimechukua uwezo mwingi na mitandao na wamiliki wa ardhi na watu ambao wana nia ya kujibu maswali ambayo labda sio kipaumbele cha njia ya kuruka au serikali." "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, ""Mwanamke huyo ni mchanganyiko wa Paul Link, Mratibu wa Mpango wa Usimamizi wa Ndege wa Maji wa Amerika Kaskazini, na Paul Link, mwanasayansi wa hobby, ambapo tunaweza kutenganisha kazi hizo mbili.""" Katika muda wangu binafsi na, mara nyingi - kulingana na mradi - Mimi kuwa na kuchukua pickup yangu mwenyewe na kuhakikisha mimi si kutumia rasilimali yoyote idara. Mimi ni afforded mengi ya fursa, na uhuru kwamba nina na utawala hapa. Mengi ya miradi mimi nina kazi juu ya, wakati wao si labda kipaumbele cha juu cha idara, kuna maslahi ya pande zote katika nini kinaendelea. Hasa kwa spishi kama bata wenye tumbo jeusi ambao wanaonekana kufanya vizuri, lakini kwamba hatuna data yoyote nzuri halisi kwa ajili ya mwenendo wa idadi ya watu au usimamizi kwa. Hiyo ni aina ya ambapo mradi wa goose nyeupe-fronted ilianza. Wengi wa hawa watu wale ambao ningekuwa kuwashika bata wa mbao au bata wa madoa kwenye mali zao wangeniuliza, "Ni nini kinachotokea na specklebellies?" Kwa uwazi, sikujua. Tunapitia mabadiliko haya ya haraka ya teknolojia. Teknolojia ya vifaa hivi vya kufuatilia <unk> Hasa, kila mwaka <unk> ni kuboreshwa karibu utaratibu mwingine wa ukubwa. Miaka mitano iliyopita, wavuvi wa speckleberry wa kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana waliuliza ni nini kinachohitajika kuweka baadhi ya vifaa hivi vya kufuatilia kwenye bata na kujua wanakwenda wapi, wanafanya nini, wanakaa wapi. Habari zote za uhamiaji wao, mafanikio ya uzazi. Unaweza kupata habari hizo zote. "Waliniambia niwaambie idadi ya fedha ambazo zinahitajika ili mradi huo uanze.""" Majira ya kiangazi yaliyofuata, tulikuwa tukikimbia. Tumia vipeperushi 11 kwenye ndege. Tuligundua jinsi ya kuwapata. Hilo lilikuwa tatizo kubwa. Kihistoria, pande zote nyeupe zinakamatwa mnamo Julai na Agosti, katika Aktiki, wakati hazina uwezo wa kuruka. Ni ndege anayehitaji kuheshimiwa. Wao ni wajanja sana, hasa wakati wao kupata hapa chini. Kwa kawaida, mashamba yao ni ya matope au ya ukiwa, na wana uwezo wa kuona na kuhisi. I've trapped sandhill cranes along the Nebraska Platte River, for a couple of springs, with Dave Brandt and Northern Prairie. Wakati huo, nilifikiri kwamba korongo wa mchanga ndio mfano bora wa kuvua ndege wa porini. Hiyo ilikuwa aina ngumu zaidi mimi milele hawakupata. Tulizika nyavu zetu na kukata kamba ya det chini na screwdriver juu ya nyasi ya prairie, kuficha kila kitu. Weka patties ng'ombe juu ya juu ya launchers na makombora, na kutumika stuffer decoys. Kwa kweli, tu kujificha katika mistari brush na roketi wavu juu ya juu ya stuffer decoys. Ilikuwa yenye kufurahisha sana. Bado miezi miwili yenye kufurahisha zaidi maishani mwangu ambayo nimewahi kuwa nayo ilikuwa kutekwa kwa crane za mchanga. White-mzizi aina ya alichukua kwamba kwa nzima 'nother ngazi. Hawakuwa wamewahi kuruka. White-mzunguko hakuwa ameshikwa katika idadi kubwa katika miaka hamsini. """Tunajaribu kugundua jinsi ya kuwapiga hapa chini, tukijua kwamba tunaweza kwenda Arctic na tunaweza kupeleka baadhi ya watumaji, lakini tu 18% yao, kwa nadharia, itaonekana hapa chini." Kwa kuwa tunatumia vifaa vya kupeleka habari vya $ 3,000, tunahitaji kuandaa vifaa vya kupeleka habari. Tulilazimika kukamata bata-bukini hao waliokuwa wakija hapa. Hiyo ni moja ya mambo mimi kweli kama kuhusu kukamata na kufanya utafiti, ni sehemu ya kukamata. Ni uwindaji wa kukamata na kuachilia. Ni vigumu sana kuua baadhi ya bata hawa, kuwapata ndani ya umbali wa bunduki, lakini ni ngazi nyingine kabisa kuwapata wakiwa hai. Kupata mikono yako juu yao na kuwa na uwezo wa kuwaacha kwenda wakati wewe ni kufanyika. Nilijaribu kuunda mitandao mbalimbali na kuunda mitandao mbalimbali ili niweze kutupa mtandao mkubwa iwezekanavyo, kwa haraka iwezekanavyo. Alivunja vitu vingi, akalipua masanduku mengi. Ilikuwa ni curve ya kujifunza pretty kubwa, lakini sisi kumalizika kukamata kundi la ndege kwamba mwaka wa kwanza. Sasa, sisi ni kupata tayari kwenda katika mwaka sita. Ramsey Russell: Mwaka wa sita. Nilikuwa tu kurekebisha kuuliza ni muda gani umekuwa kufanya hivyo. Paul Link: Ndio. Kwa kweli, sisi ni kuleta juu ya mwanafunzi PhD na post-doc mwaka huu. Sisi ni kupanua mtandao wetu wa washirika. Kwa Dr. Mitch Weigman wa Missouri, tutaleta watu wawili wenye nguvu sana kusaidia kuchambua vitu hivi vyote. Kimsingi, sisi ni kwenda kuweka pamoja mzunguko wa maisha, ikolojia, ya katikati ya bara nyeupe-mashariki ili kufunga vipande vyote hivi vidogo pamoja na kuchagua makazi ya majira ya baridi na athari msalaba-mwaka. "Tuna nadharia hizi sasa hivi, miaka mingi katika mradi huu, kwamba labda matumizi ya makazi ya majira ya baridi, na hali ya mwili wa majira ya baridi, ina ushawishi juu ya uzalishaji wa majira ya kuchipua na majira ya joto ya mbele nyeupe. """ Kama ndege hawa, hapa chini katika kusini magharibi <unk> kuna mengi ya usumbufu kwenda juu ya huko chini. Vipeperushi hivi vina kipima-haraka cha mviringo uliojengwa ndani ya chombo. Hivyo kama hii ni transmitter, tunaweza kusema nini ni <unk> kufanya juu ya kwamba X, Y, na Z mhimili. Tunajua kama goose ni kuruka, kama ni kulala, kama ni kutembea, kama ni tipping na dipping, kama ni preening. Kwa hivyo, kwa kutumia data hii, tunaweza kuunda mfano wa nishati ya nyigu. Kwa hiyo si tu unajua kwamba wao ni katika kuratibu hii katika uwanja huu na unaweza kwenda ndani na kutambua ni kama mchele wa mazao ya pili na kumi-inchi stubble na mafuriko nne-inchi lakini kisha unaweza pia kusema nini ndege ni kufanya. Wakati wao uwiano alitumia katika kila moja ya makazi hayo. "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, ""mashindano ya mikoa ndani ya jimbo na kati ya majimbo ya Marekani yanaonyesha kwamba mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko wa mlipuko.""" Hiyo ni moja ya mambo ambayo sisi ilizinduliwa katika mwaka jana, na kwamba upanuzi wa mradi katika Arkansas na kundi la wengine wafadhili binafsi. Ikiwa ndege hao huko juu wanafanya na kujiendesha tofauti, ikiwa wanapata usumbufu mdogo na kuna chakula zaidi, kunaweza kuwa na athari za muda mrefu kwa kiwango cha idadi ya watu kwa mahali ambapo ndege huchagua majira ya baridi kali. Hiyo ni dhahiri kitu ngumu sana. Kisha inakuwa ngumu zaidi wakati wewe ni kuangalia mtu huyo huyo kwa miaka. Hiyo ni kitu kingine ambacho teknolojia hii imetuwezesha kufanya, ni kuangalia ndege mmoja kwa miaka mingi kuona ni mabadiliko gani. Ni nini huathiri mahali wanapoishi wakati wa majira ya baridi kali? Ni nini huathiri tarehe zao za kuhama-hama wakati wa vuli? Ndege wengi ambao wamekuwa wakifanya kazi katika eneo la Arctic kwa majira ya baridi kali, na baadaye kwenda Arkansas kwa wiki chache, na kisha kuishia Indiana na Illinois kwa majira ya baridi kali. Kwa nini ndege aliyekuwa hapa Oktoba mwaka uliopita asije tena karibu na Louisiana? Kuona ndege mmoja akifanya uhamiaji mara nyingi kunaweza kusaidia kuunganisha vipande na labda kupata baadhi ya vigezo vya ufafanuzi kwa nini bata hao walichagua kwenda Kaskazini na kukaa na Canada na theluji kaskazini. Katika hatua hii, miaka mitano katika utafiti, sisi kimsingi got majibu machache kuhusu aina maalum ya makazi, tarehe ya kuwasili, kuondoka spring. Tuna seti kubwa ya data ya kazi ya ufugaji ikolojia. Sasa sisi ni kujaribu kuangalia uaminifu na philopatry majira ya baridi. Inachukua watu wengi zaidi na miaka mingi zaidi. Hiyo ndiyo sababu sisi ni pretty msisimko kuhusu upanuzi huu wa hivi karibuni kwenda juu kwa miaka mingine mitatu ya kupelekwa. Vipande hivi vimepangwa kudumu kati ya miaka miwili na mitatu. Kwa wale wa kiume wa White-fronted Geese, ambao wana umri wa miaka miwili na nusu, vifaa vya kupeleka habari bado viko sawa. Vitu hivi vina betri, na betri zina maisha ya rafu kwao kulingana na idadi ya mizunguko ya kuchaji, lakini bado zinaendelea kuwa na nguvu. Hilo ni jambo lenye kutia moyo sana. Nyigu huishi kwa muda mrefu. Hakuna watu wengi wanaolenga bata-milia wetu wenye kola. "Kuhusu ""Kupiga risasi ya White-fronted Geese na Collar Transmitters"" Ramsey Russell: ""Ninajua baadhi ya guys kwamba bila shaka lengo yao kama wao waliona yao kuja katika decoys." Paul Link: Ndio. Mimi nimepata idadi ya watu, kwamba sisi wameongea juu ya awali, kwamba ni usimamizi hasa kwa ajili yao. Wengi wao wameunga mkono mradi huo kwa fedha na kwa kupata mali yao kwa ajili ya kuwinda. Mmoja wa watu katika kusini magharibi Louisiana ni mwito ajabu. Yeye ni kupita juu ya tano collared nyeupe-mashariki kwamba alikuwa juu ya decoys katika shotgun mbalimbali. Yeye ni kuitwa mbali michezo yake kutoka kuvuta trigger juu ya ndege hao. "Mmoja wa waandishi wa habari aliniambia kwamba ""walipata vifaru watano na waliwaua wote isipokuwa yule ndege mwenye kola.""" Hiyo ilikuwa aina ya uzoefu safi, na ndege huyo na kundi lake la familia. Yote yalikuwa na mistari, jambo lenye kupendeza. Mbweha wanne waliokuwa wakiruka pamoja naye walikuwa wote wamefungwa. Tuliona matokeo ya kile kilichotokea alipopoteza familia yake yote. Alifanya baadhi ya harakati kweli ajabu kwa siku chache, lakini, ajabu kutosha, makazi haki nyuma katika muundo huo huo. Alirudi moja kwa moja kwenye shamba lilelile. Kuna mbuzi wawili wa mbele nyeupe, ambao wako katika mwaka wao wa tatu wa uhamiaji, ambao hufanya viota katika bakuli moja la kiota katika Mteremko wa Kaskazini wa Alaska na kuja kwenye shamba moja kusini mwa Gueydan, Louisiana. "Basi, kwa sababu ya ""mfano"" huu, tunaweza kuona kwamba ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa ""mfano"" wa""" Ndege hao huishi mahali palepale, katika shamba moja, mwaka baada ya mwaka. Kuna mbawakawa wawili ambao wanaishi katika eneo moja la Alaska na wanaishi katika shamba moja la kusini mwa Goydian, Louisiana. Ramsey Russell: Si parokia ileile tu; ni shamba lile lile. Paul Link: Shamba lilelile. Eneo hilohilo. """Tumekuwa tukifanya uchunguzi wa mazingira kwa miaka mitatu, na mengi ya hayo yalikuwa ya kwenda nje na kubisha milango na kuwauliza wakulima, ikiwa hatukuweza kuona shamba ambalo ndege walikuwa ndani, tulifanya mahojiano ya uso kwa uso." Tulipata rekodi za shamba, na tulizungumza na watu hawa. Tulitaka kujua: Ikiwa wako katika uwanja huu, ulifanya nini kwenye uwanja huo? Hiyo ni usimamizi athari nyuma ya yote haya. Mimi, na-minded, muddy boot biolojia... Kama wao ni kuchagua uwanja huu, na kuna tu 1% ya kwamba katika mazingira, na mengi ya hawa wavulana wengine ambao ni kujaribu kusimamia kwa ajili ya nyeupe-mashariki hawajui kwamba hiyo ni nini ni preferred, basi hawawezi kutoa yao. Hiyo ni moja ya matunda ya chini-kutegemea kutoka mradi huu. Kuamua kiwango cha nafasi na muda wa makazi ya kupendwa, upatikanaji wake katika mazingira, na kisha uteuzi wa mashamba hayo na kuiga katika mazingira na kutoa zaidi ya hayo. Sina shaka kwamba ni suala la makazi ambalo linaendesha sehemu kubwa ya kupungua kwetu hapa. Kumekuwa na mabadiliko mengi katika kilimo cha mchele hapa, tu katika muda ambao nimekuwa hapa. Ni mabadiliko gani ya makao yanayofanya idadi ya Specklebelly (White-fronted Geese) na ndege wengine wa majini waishi kwa majira ya baridi kali huko Louisiana? Sina shaka kwamba ni suala la makazi ambalo linaendesha sehemu kubwa ya kupungua kwetu hapa. Kumekuwa na mabadiliko mengi katika kilimo cha mchele hapa, tu katika muda ambao nimekuwa hapa... Wakati [unafanya uchunguzi wa angani] unakuja kwenye mabwawa na unapiga mabadiliko ya kilimo na uko katika mchele, unaweza karibu kupata pumzi yako. Wewe ni kuangalia juu mbele, na unaweza kuona mchele kuja, na mambo ni kwenda kupunguza kasi. Utakuwa na muda wa kupumua. Kisha, unapopanda juu ya dimbwi la crawfish - hasa mashamba ya crawfish ambayo yana mitego, ambayo yana njia za mashua ambazo zimetambuliwa wazi - ni mji wa roho. Hakuna bata. Hakuna bata-bukini. Hakuna ndege wa majini. Ramsey Russell: Kumekuwa na mabadiliko mengi katika makazi kwa ujumla. Si tu katika Louisiana, lakini juu na chini ya Mississippi Flyway na katika dunia kwa ujumla. "Kama ni kweli, ""mwisho wa siku"" katika Louisiana ni wakati wa kuvutia wa pwani ya Ghuba ya Amerika, ambayo ni sehemu ya eneo la pwani ya Marekani." Uharibifu wa pwani, ardhi inayozama, hata hivyo wanaelezea Delta ya chini ya Mississippi. Kwa mfano, kuna uwezekano wa kuwa na eneo la kuishi la marsh, au marsh ya nusu ya kudumu, na kuwa na mchele. Kisha kumekuwa na mabadiliko mengine. Kwa mfano, kamba-mti. Hiyo kutumika kuwa watu wachache ambao alikwenda nje na dawa mitaro na kukamatwa crawfish, nyuma katika siku. Sasa ni biashara ya mamilioni ya dola, na ndege wa majini hula kamba-mti hao wadogo wanapokuwa watoto. Ni nini hasa unachokiona? Unafikiria nini hadi sasa, miaka mitano katika hii? Paul Link: Naam, hilo ndilo swali la dola milioni moja. Mabadiliko ya kilimo, aina ya mchele na jinsi ya kulima mchele. Nilipokuja hapa miaka kumi na tano iliyopita, kila mtu alikuwa akipanda maji. "Kutumia maji ya mafuriko, kazi ya maji shamba, kuruka mchele ndani, kuvuta maji mbali, pulse maji nyuma juu. """ Mazao ya jadi ya mchele ya aina ya urithi. "Kisha, kwa sababu ya mabadiliko ya maumbile, ""Clearfield"" ilibadilishwa." Kwa mfano, kilimo cha ardhi kavu, ambapo mimea hupigwa na kuchimbwa, na maji hayajaingia au kutoka, kama ilivyokuwa katika historia. Kumekuwa na mabadiliko mengi katika njia ya kulima mchele. Kwa mfano, eneo la ufugaji wa samaki, ambalo limekuwa likiongezeka sana, limekuwa likiongezeka sana. Katika visa vingi, ni kwa ajili ya bora. Kuna tani ya wakulima wa mchele huko nje ambao hawangekuwa katika biashara sasa hivi ikiwa haingekuwa kwa ajili ya mchele / crab aquaculture. Wao kweli hawawezi kufanya moja bila nyingine katika matukio mengi. Ni mazao ya fedha ambayo huwaweka kwenye ardhi, ambayo huwafanya wawe na faida. Lakini, ni wazi kwamba, kamba-mti si makao ya kipenzi cha mbele nyeupe. Wao ni kawaida mafuriko juu ya kina pretty. Ni ya kina sana. Ramsey Russell: Nilikuwa nikisema hapo awali kwamba wanapenda maji yasiyo na kina kirefu ambapo miguu yao tu hupata mvua. Paul Link: Ndio. Wao huishi katika shamba la kamba-mti, lakini, kwa kawaida, wavuvi wa kamba-mti hutaka kiini. Wanataka nyasi hiyo. Wao ni kuweka bunduki na lasers na bendera, kila aina ya kizuizi, huko nje ili kuweka ndege wa maji nje ya huko. Na, bila shaka, kuwapiga risasi ikiwa ni lazima. Ramsey Russell: Mbali na spots, unafikiri mazoea hayo yangeathiri matumizi ya bata ya makazi hayo? Najua kuna baadhi ya makundi chini katika sehemu hiyo ya dunia kwamba ni wote juu ya silaha juu ya mahindi juu katika Missouri, lakini kunaweza kuwa na mambo mengine ya kwenda juu ya haki huko katika bustani yao ya nyuma. Paul Link: Bila shaka. Ni jambo lilelile. """Wakati tunapofanya uchunguzi wa angani, Larry Reynolds, ambaye amekuwa akifanya hili kwa muda mrefu kuliko mimi, daima anazungumza wakati anapotoka kwenye mabadiliko hayo, tuna mistari ya kaskazini-kusini, na unapoingia kwenye mabwawa na unapiga mabadiliko ya kilimo na uko kwenye mchele, unaweza karibu kuvuta pumzi yako." Wewe ni kuangalia juu mbele, na unaweza kuona mchele kuja, na mambo ni kwenda kupunguza kasi. Utakuwa na muda wa kupumua. Kisha, unapopanda juu ya dimbwi la crawfish - hasa mashamba ya crawfish ambayo yana mitego, ambayo yana njia za mashua ambazo zimetambuliwa wazi - ni mji wa roho. Hakuna bata. Hakuna bata-bukini. Hakuna ndege wa majini. Hakuna kitu katika maeneo mengi ya maeneo haya. Kwa mara nyingine tena, kamba-mti ni bora kuliko kutokuwa na chochote. Ni bora kuliko miwa kwa ndege wa majini. Ni mojawapo ya upanga huo wenye makali mawili. Ramsey Russell: Je, hakuna mengi ya miwa katika sehemu hiyo ya Louisiana? Paul Link: Imekua kwa kasi sana. Ramsey Russell: Je, unafikiri umefikia mwisho, au bado unaendelea kupanuka? Paul Link: Nadhani ni pengine bado kupanua. Ramsey Russell: Wow. Ninapenda crawfish, lakini umenifanya nianze kuhisi hatia kwa kula kama mimi kufanya. "Mwanamke mmoja: ""Ninaendelea kula chakula hicho." Kama nilivyosema, mimi ni rafiki mzuri na wakulima wengi wa mchele, na inawaweka katika biashara. Kama si kwa ajili ya uwezo wa crawfish juu ya baadhi ya eneo lao, au nusu ya eneo lao, hawakuweza kuweka shamba. Ramsey Russell: Je, sikuzote wao hukusanya mchele wa aina ya ratoon, au mchele wa aina ya pili, katika sehemu hii ya ulimwengu? Paul Link: Ndio. Ramsey Russell: Hiyo imekuwa ikitokea daima, na sasa wanagundua kwamba wanaweza kuleta sehemu hii ya ufugaji wa maji kama mazao ya tatu, kweli. Hiyo ni jinsi wanavyoweza kubaki na faida na kukaa katika biashara. "Mwanamke huyo, ambaye ni Speckle-Belly, aliandika hivi: ""Ninakutazama kwenye Instagram, na nitahakikisha kwamba unashiriki habari hiyo na watu wengine wanaosikiliza, kwa sababu watapata habari yako kuwa ya kuvutia." Ni nini baadhi ya mambo ya wazimu umewahi kuona kufanya hizi banding na, hasa, hizi geo-locator masomo? "Mwanamke mmoja alisema: ""Kama ni kwa sababu ya kiwango cha ndege wanachoweza kuendesha katika nchi nzima, ni jambo la kushangaza sana." Tuna White-fronted Geese kwamba, wakati wao kuja mbali Arctic katika majira ya joto - hasa wale Alaska ndege katika vuli na, zaidi ya kuvutia, katika spring - wakati wao ni kukaa huko katika Peace River katika Alberta, kamari kwamba wao ni kuandaa - Sidhani kama watu wengi wanaweza kuelewa kamari kwamba ndege ni kufanya. Wanasimama hapo kihalisi kwenye mstari wa barafu. Wamekuwa wakipigana na barafu hiyo kwenda Kaskazini, ambayo, kisaikolojia, mara nyingi wanapambana na hilo. Kwa mfano, unaweza kuona kwamba chini ya ardhi, hali ya hewa bado ni 95 ° C. Hiyo ni nyeupe-mbele kwamba unaweza kufikiri hapendi baridi. Hata hivyo, wakati wa majira ya kuchipua, wao hukata tamaa sana kurudi Aktiki. Wanataka bakuli lao la kiota. Wanataka kuwa hapo kwanza. Wanataka kuwa na uhakika kwamba wanapata nafasi bora zaidi. "Kuketi huko kuangalia harakati hizi, kuangalia ndege hao hatua juu, na kisha, mwaka mmoja au mbili baadaye, kuelewa matokeo ya kisaikolojia ya uamuzi wao juu ya wakati sisi kwenda, wakati sisi kuondoka hapa, wao kuondoka bila kujua nini siku kumi utabiri ni maili 1,100 mbali, ambapo wao ni kwenda. """ Wanapoondoka kwenye Mto huo wa Amani, kuna miamba, miti, na barafu. Ndege hao huonekana. Wana wiki mbili za kusimama juu ya barafu wanapofika huko. Kila mwaka. Katika hali nzuri zaidi, wanahitaji kusimama huko kwa majuma mawili. Hakuna kwenda kuwa na yoyote ya kijani-up. Hakuna chakula. Hakuna kitu. Wanapopaa, wanabeba kile wanachoweza kubeba kwa namna ya mafuta yao ambayo wamekusanya tena kwa kula nafaka za taka kwenye nyanda za nyasi. Wao ni hinging juu ya kwamba. Wao ni uzito gharama ya kukaa huko na kuzaa kwa siku chache za ziada, dhidi ya mwingine nyeupe-mbele kupata kwa makazi choosest mbele yao. Wao ni kupima mambo yote na kuona matokeo. Tumekuwa na miaka michache mbaya mfululizo kwa ajili ya uzalishaji. Ndege kupata juu huko - na si mbaya kama ni baridi, kama barafu-nje ni kucheleweshwa - lakini kama wao kupata kuanzisha kiota na kisha wana dhoruba ya theluji na hawawezi kukaa juu ya mayai yao, wao kupoteza yao. Wanapaswa kuwahifadhi, mara tu wanapozindua. Kuona mabadiliko hayo, maamuzi hayo makubwa ambayo bata hao wanafanya, na ukali wa hali ya hewa ambayo vitu hivyo vinakabiliwa nayo. Vifaa hivyo vina vifaa vya kukusanya hali ya hewa, ambapo vinaweza kupata asilimia ya ufuniko wa mawingu, joto, shinikizo la hewa, na kasi ya upepo. Unaona nini ndege hawa ni kufanya. Wanapoondoka Alberta, hawawezi kupata juu ya baridi kwa siku thelathini, miaka mingi. Kujua kwamba hakuna unyevu. Hakuna mimea ya kijani kibichi. Wao ni juu yao wenyewe kutoka wakati wao kuondoka. Wao ni wazalishaji wa mtaji, kwa hiyo wanawake wao watalazimika kuweka mayai mengi. Yeye ni kwenda kupoteza tani ya uzito. Mchezo wa kubashiri ambao wao kufanya <unk> Kwa mimi, kwamba <unk> ni kitu cha kuvutia zaidi. Kisha, kinyume chake, wanaporudi kupitia nyanda za nyasi, nyanda za Saskatchewan na Alberta katika Septemba na Oktoba ni mahali pazuri sana. Kuna chakula kila mahali. Maziwa wanayoishi ni ya kudumu sana. Daima kutakuwa na ziwa kubwa, Quills au eneo jingine maarufu staging. Ni imara. Inaweza kuaminika. Mazao yamebadilika kidogo katika miaka ishirini iliyopita, lakini <unk> Ramsey Russell: Mazao mengi ya canola. Paul Link: Ndio. Nyasi na shayiri. Nyasi zinaendelea vizuri katika sehemu nyingi, lakini shayiri sivyo. Hiyo ni dhahiri moja ya vitu vyao preferred, lakini wao kuacha yote kwamba. Wengi wao huondoka huko katika wakati wa wingi, na huja hapa. Mara nyingi nimekuwa nikijiuliza ni kwa nini hilo hutukia. Wanaacha nchi inayotiririka maziwa na asali. Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose) Uhamiaji Timing Ramsey Russell: Je, unaweza kuona, na data yako baada ya miaka mitano msaada <unk>? Kwa sababu siku zote nimewaona chembechembe kuwa wahamiaji wa photoperiod. Ni kama sehemu ya ndani ya kalenda yao inasema, "Wakati wa kwenda". Paul Link: Ndiyo, hiyo imebadilika sana. Kama mtoto aliyekua katika Dakota ya Kaskazini, ambapo nilifanya, moja kwa moja kwenye Mto Missouri, nakumbuka wafunguaji wetu wa maporomoko ya maji. Kama wewe si kuua nyeupe-mbele katika North Dakota juu ya kufungua mwishoni mwa wiki, wewe kamwe kuona au kusikia nyingine. "Ninakumbuka nikiwa nje nikitazama na kusikia ndege katikati ya usiku; kutembea nje au kulala na madirisha wazi usiku, na kusikia ""spots"" kwenda juu ya kichwa mnamo Septemba." Kamwe kuona speck. Kuanzia Novemba kwanza na kuendelea, hujawahi kuona doa hapo juu. Sasa, kwa miaka mitano iliyopita, nimekuwa kuuawa spots huko wakati mimi kwenda nyuma ya kuwinda. Wao ni na prairie magharibi Canada vizuri baada ya barafu-up, katika theluji. Kwa hakika mambo yanabadilika. Kuna spots huko juu ambayo kukaa marehemu. Wao husubiri hadi theluji ya mwisho ya majira ya baridi kali wakati theluji inapokuwa nzito sana ili kupata chakula. Kisha, kuona hawa geese kwamba ni wintering katika Illinois na Indiana miaka michache iliyopita <unk> kwamba <unk> ni mwenendo kwamba <unk>ve alikuwa na kila mwaka. Kumekuwa na bata mmoja hadi wanne ambao tumewaashiria hapa chini kwamba, mara tu wanapofika hapa, inaonekana kama wanageuka na kuanza kutiririka kurudi Kaskazini. Baadhi yao, hata kabla ya misimu yetu ya uwindaji hata kufunguliwa. Ni vigumu kueleza. Je, Ufanisi wa Mavuno ya Kilimo Unaoboreshwa Huathiri Mfano wa Kulisha wa Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose)? Ramsey Russell: Je, hiyo inaweza kuwa kazi ya ongezeko la idadi ya watu? Labda kuna ndege zaidi, kwa hivyo kuna dirisha la muda mrefu la fursa kwamba wao ni nesting, kwa hivyo una hatua tofauti za madarasa ya umri au kitu wakati ni wakati wa kuhamia Kusini? Je, huenda ikawa hivyo? Paul Link: Ndio. Mimi guessing ni pengine ni chakula. Hizi kuchanganya, wao ni kupata bora na bora kila mwaka. Nimekuwa nje nyuma ya kuchanganya katika uwanja. Geese <unk> Kama wao kuanza kulisha katika uwanja asubuhi, wao si <unk> hit ni tena. Hiyo ni hivyo. Watakuwa wameila hadi mwisho wa siku. Ikiwa wanaingia huko saa tatu mchana, kuna uwezekano wa 50 50 kwamba watarudi na kuipiga tena asubuhi inayofuata. Wao <unk>d kula shamba nje katika siku moja. Hizi ni mashamba makavu. Wakulima wamevuta maji. Ni mazao ya ratoon, na unaweza kuona mbegu za mtu binafsi zikiwa chini. Wale nyeupe-mashariki - Mimi nina uhakika umewahi kuwaona - kupata bega kwa bega, na wao ni kimsingi mbio. Ndege nyuma ya kundi, wao itabidi kupata juu na kuruka yadi ishirini mbele. "Ramsey Russell: ""Hii ni kama kundi la Hoover vacuums ndogo-ndogo wakichunguza uwanja." Paul Link: Ndiyo. Wakati huo wa mwaka, kilimo cha mchele, na kilimo kwa ujumla, kimekuwa safi. Mashamba haya ya mchele ni safi, safi, safi. Hakuna kitu ndani yao. Miaka 25 iliyopita, miaka 50 iliyopita - kutoka kwa kuzungumza na watu wengi hawa - kilimo kilikuwa cha uchafu. Kulikuwa na aina zote za mimea ya udongo wenye unyevunyevu katikati ya mashamba haya yote, na kulikuwa na chakula zaidi. Teknolojia ya kuchanganya <unk> Mengi yalitoka nyuma ya kuchanganya ikiwa haukuwa na skrini yako imewekwa vizuri, lakini sasa kila kitu ni safi sana. Kuna mchele kidogo sana wa taka unaotoka, na wao ni wa ufanisi sana. Kuna magugu machache sana. Kuna mbegu chache sana. Hakuna mengi zaidi juu ya mazingira kwa ajili ya wale white-fronted geese mpaka sisi kuanza kupata baadhi ya kijani-up tena katika mashamba hayo. Ramsey Russell: Basi ni nini baadhi ya mimea ya msingi? Henbit? Nini itakuwa baadhi ya mimea wao ni kugonga, kwa sababu nilikuwa najiuliza. Si nafaka tu. Ni chochote kinachokuja baadaye, kijani kidogo-up. Paul Link: Ndio. Wao kufanya mabadiliko pretty stark, na kwamba ni moja ya mambo yetu ardhi-truthing data kweli alionyesha. Wao 'll kubadili kwa malisho katikati ya majira ya baridi, na inategemea temp na unyevu na kila kitu. Hasa mashamba ya maharagwe na mashamba ya kilimo yasiyo na kazi. Wanyama hawapendi sana, lakini wakati wavulana wanaanza kuzalisha malisho ya rye mnamo Desemba na Januari... Hizi mbawakawa zenye uso mweupe zitafanya hivyo. Kwa mfano, unaweza kuona data ya sensor ya ndege, ambayo inaweza kuonekana kama kitu cha kawaida, na unaweza kuona jinsi ndege wanavyofanya kazi. Katika majira ya kupukutika kwa majani, wao kuanza kufanya mbili-a-siku, ambapo wao ni kwenda nje kulisha katika nyimbo kuchanganya asubuhi; kwenda nyuma ya maji, kwa roost, kupitia joto la siku; na kisha kuruka nyuma nje jioni. Wao hufanya hivyo kwa muda mrefu. Ni 95 ° C, hivyo wao ni kwenda nyuma kwa ajili ya kinywaji kama hakuna maji katika nyimbo kuchanganya ya mashamba ya mchele. Kisha wakati fulani, kwa kawaida katikati ya majira ya baridi kali mnamo Desemba au hivyo, wao hubadilika na kuwa malisho. Wao ni wanyama wanaokula mimea. Wao ni tu nje clipping shina na mambo mbalimbali. Wakati huo, wao hukula malisho kwa muda wa saa kumi kwa siku. Kama kuna saa kumi na mbili za mchana, na shughuli zao juu ya data hiyo sensor, unaweza kuona kwamba wao ni kazi. Wao hula chakula kingi sana. Si kupata nishati nyingi nje ya hayo, lakini hiyo ni nini inapatikana, hivyo hiyo ni nini wao ni kula. Je, Mabadiliko ya Shinikizo la Uwindaji juu ya Specklebellies (White-fronted Geese) katika Louisiana? Kufikia Jumapili alasiri ya mwisho-juma wa ufunguzi, wale [waliochaguliwa] geese wenye uso mweupe walikuwa wametoka Louisiana au walikuwa wameondoka katika Eneo la Pwani. Kila moja ya yao, kwamba sisi alama katika Eneo la Pwani alikuwa kushoto eneo hilo ndani ya saa kumi na nane [ya asubuhi ngumu ya ufunguzi ambapo bata na goose kufunguliwa katika tarehe moja]. Jambo la maana zaidi ni kwamba hawakuja tena wakati wote wa majira ya baridi kali. Ramsey Russell: Mazingira yanayobadilika, ambayo daima yataendelea kubadilika. Je, uwindaji au shinikizo la uwindaji lina jukumu katika mabadiliko haya yoyote? Je, unaweza kuiona katika baadhi ya data za kijiografia? Je, unaweza kuona fungu la shinikizo la uwindaji katika harakati za ndege? Paul Link: Ndio. Miaka miwili ya kwanza ya mradi huu, tulikuwa na kile nilichoita "miisho-juma ngumu ya ufunguzi", ambapo msimu wetu wa bata na bata wa pwani ulifunguliwa tarehe hiyo hiyo. Ni Vita ya Ulimwengu ya Tatu. Sitasahau kamwe majira yangu ya baridi kali ya kwanza hapa. Nilikuwa katika nyumba ya kulala katika Hifadhi ya Kitaifa ya Wanyama wa Pori ya Cameron Prairie. Tulikuwa tukifuatilia usiku kucha, tukipata mallards zetu, na kisha tungerudi asubuhi na kuanza kufuatilia ardhi. Ningepata orodha ya ndege waliopotea pamoja, na ningeenda uwanja wa ndege na kupata tathmini, na tungeweza kuruka. Tulifanya hivyo kila siku na usiku wakati hali ya hewa iliporuhusu. Naam, siku hiyo ya ufunguzi... Sitasahau jinsi ilivyokuwa. Tulikuwa tunaenda kulala, asubuhi hiyo, na ilikuwa kama kitu ambacho sikuwa nimewahi kusikia. Nilikuwa nimekua katika North Dakota, na alikuwa alisafiri katika juu ya Midwest na katika Canada, kuwinda, lakini mimi kamwe kusikia kitu kama hicho kabla. Hakukuwa na sekunde tatu ambapo hakukuwa na risasi, mlipuko wa risasi, kwa masaa. Hiyo ilikuwa jambo kubwa kwa ajili ya wale bata-bukini. Wawindaji wa bata na bata-mwitu ni tofauti sana. "Mwindaji wa bata atapiga risasi 100% ya wakati, ikiwa na fursa, lakini 15% ya wawindaji wetu wa ndege wa maji ambao hujitambulisha kama wawindaji wa bata ni tofauti sana na wawindaji wa bata. """ Wengi wao ni wawindaji wa mashamba makavu. Wao ni kuwinda na airbrushed, desturi, mwili mzima decoys katika blinds kwamba huwezi kuona kutoka mita hamsini. Wanakuambia, "Njoo hapa. Hatua hapa. Hatua hapa. <unk> Wao ni picking up hulls yao kutumika juu kama wao ni ufahamu wa kila kitu. Hizi ndizo mauaji yenye matokeo zaidi. Ramsey Russell: Wakati mimi <unk>ve kuwinda white-fronted geese chini karibu Cameron, ilikuwa brushed hivyo densely kwamba unaweza kuvaa nyeupe shrimping mashua na jumpsuit machungwa. Kwa kweli, hadi asubuhi, ilibidi nitumie taa ya simu yangu kupata sanduku langu la risasi. Ilikuwa jambo zito. Paul Link: Ndio. Miaka miwili ya kwanza, hiyo ndiyo njia ambayo eneo letu na mpaka wetu ulifanya kazi. "Kama ilivyo kwa ""Dude and Goose"" ambayo ilifunguliwa tarehe moja, ilikuwa ngumu sana." Mwaka huo wa kwanza wa mradi wetu, tulitoa vitengo kumi na moja kama majaribio. Tulikuwa na saba ambayo tulikuwa tumeashiria kabla ya msimu. Kufikia Jumapili mchana, majira ya mwisho ya wiki, wote saba wa wale geese nyeupe-fronted walikuwa ama kushoto Louisiana au walikuwa kushoto Coastal Zone. Kila moja ya ndege saba zilizowekwa alama katika eneo la pwani zilikuwa zimeondoka ndani ya saa 18. Ramsey Russell: Eneo hilo ni kubwa kadiri gani? Hilo lamaanisha nini? Paul Link: Kimsingi, theluthi ya kusini ya jimbo ilikuwa katika Eneo la Pwani. Jambo la maana zaidi ni kwamba hawakuja tena wakati wote wa majira ya baridi kali. "Nilikuwa na utani na ujumbe wangu wa kwanza mwaka huo, kwamba mara tu walipovuka I-10, ilikuwa imekwisha.""" Hakukuwa na njia ya kurudi nyuma. Mbweha hao wenye nyuso nyeupe hawakurudi kamwe. Ramsey Russell: Walienda wapi? Kaskazini? "Mwanamke mmoja wa familia ya ""White-fronted Goose"" aliwahi kuanguka kwenye barabara ya MAV ya kaskazini mashariki ya Monroe." Nyigu wengine wenye nyuso nyeupe walihamia upande wa mashariki wa Delta. Ramsey Russell: Wow. Ndiyo, hiyo ni njia nzuri sana. Paul Link: Ndio. Jambo la maana zaidi ni kwamba hawakuja tena wakati wote wa majira ya baridi kali. "Nilikuwa na utani na ujumbe wangu wa kwanza mwaka huo, kwamba mara tu walipovuka I-10, ilikuwa imekwisha.""" Hakukuwa na njia ya kurudi nyuma. Mbweha hao wenye nyuso nyeupe hawakurudi kamwe. Mwaka wa pili, tulikuwa na vituo 24. Nadhani kama tulikuwa tumeweka 11 kwenye orodha, basi hii ni moja ya sababu. Tulipoteza ndege 8 kati ya 11. Waliondoka katika Eneo la Pwani Jumapili wakati wa machweo ya jua ya mwishoni mwa wiki ya ufunguzi. Lakini, kwa upande mwingine, kwa sababu ya upanuzi wa nafasi za kukimbia, tuna nafasi ya kuongeza siku za ziada. Kwa kuwa tunawawezesha wavuvi wetu kupata nafasi ya kutumia siku hizo za ziada, tulitoa nafasi ya kwenda katika eneo la pwani majuma mawili kabla ya kufunguliwa kwa bata. Kwa kweli, msimu wa kuku wenye uso mweupe ulianza muda mrefu kabla ya msimu wa bata. Kama nilivyosema, karibu asilimia 15 ya wawindaji wa ndege wa majini ni wawindaji wa bata. Wengi wa watu hao waliondoka mwaka wa tatu wa mradi wetu na kuwinda. Kwa bahati nzuri, 85% ya wawindaji wengine wa ndege wa maji, wawindaji wa bata, hawakuwa huko bado. Bunduki zilianza kupiga katika maeneo hayo yaliyosimamiwa kwa ukali ambapo watu walikuwa wakiwinda bata-bukini, lakini sehemu nyingine za eneo hilo hazikuwa zikiwinda, kwa hiyo bata-bukini hao wangeweza kwenda kugundua mambo. Wanaweza kwenda na kutembea mbele ya mtu wa bata kipofu kwa masaa machache wakati wale guys kumaliza uwindaji. Walibaki hapa. Walikuwa kama, "Okay, tumeifahamu hii". Majuma mawili baadaye, mfunguzi wa bata anakuja. Kufikia wakati huo, walikuwa wamejua mahali ambapo kila kitu kilikuwa. Wavulana walikuwa kwenda nje siku kabla, brushing duck blinds yao, kutupa decoys yao nje, na White-mzizi walikuwa aina ya kama, <unk>Okay. Kuandika mambo. Sisi got hii. Sisi got hii figured out. <unk> Siku ya ufunguzi wa duck msimu alikuja, na walikuwa na yote figured out. Hawakupoteza nyigu wengine wa mbele nyeupe katika miaka michache iliyofuata. Hiyo ilikuwa aina ya ajali, kwamba tulijifunza. Mvurugo wa uwindaji <unk> Wakati inatokea kama hiyo, wakati kila kitu hufunguliwa pamoja na kila mtu yuko nje, hakuna maeneo mengi salama kwa ndege kwenda ndani ya nchi. Wao hupaa hewani. Bunduki ni tu kwenda nje kila mahali, na wao ni tu kama, "Tunahitaji kwenda. Tulihitaji kwenda mahali pengine. <unk> Wakati, wakati ilifunguliwa mapema, hakukuwa na karibu bunduki nyingi zinazopigwa wakati huo huo. Wanaweza aina ya kuweka bearings yao na kupata maeneo ya kuendesha ni nje. Walikuwa na siku kumi na mbili za kutafuta mahali salama. Je, Kutoa Mahali Patakatifu Kunaweza Kuboresha Uwindaji wa Specklebelly (White-fronted Goose)? "Mwanzoni, ""makundi makubwa ya mpira wa miguu"" yalijulikana kwa kufanikiwa na kufanikiwa, lakini kwa sasa, ""makundi makubwa ya mpira wa miguu"" yanaendelea na mafanikio yao." """Wana maeneo ambayo wanafanya kazi bora zaidi katika kudhibiti usumbufu kuliko makazi yasiyo na hatia ambayo mashirika na Huduma ya Samaki na Wanyamapori na watu kama sisi wanaweza kuwa nayo." Wao kutoa mahali katikati ya shamba lao ambapo wao tu kuondoka waterfowl peke yake. Hiyo ni yao. Hiyo ni makao yao. Hiyo ni mahali pao patakatifu. Watu hupenda kuwa na makundi makubwa ya bata-mwitu katikati ya mashamba yao. Kwa kweli, kuna uwezekano wa kuwa na baadhi ya makosa na kukupa fursa ya kuona na kuvuna ndege wa maji. Hiyo ilikuwa moja ya mambo makubwa na yenye kuelimisha zaidi tuliyoona. Kuna uwezekano kwamba tunaweza aina ya polepole kugeuka ndege hawa juu ya shinikizo uwindaji. Sisi ni kujaribu kuunda mini hifadhi ya mpango, hivyo kusema. Au tunaweza kuwapa ndege hawa maji ya mapema, ya kuaminika, kila mwaka, kwenye mandhari ambayo ni kavu sana, na kisha kuifanya iwe huru kutoka kwa usumbufu. "Kama risasi zinaanza kupiga wakati wa msimu wa uwindaji, wanajua, kihistoria, kwamba, ""Haya, tunaweza kwenda kwenye uwanja huu, na hakuna mtu atakayecheza nasi"" - kisha, kwa wazi, wanaweza kwenda kutafuta chakula kutoka hapo." Ikiwa watapigwa risasi, watarudi. Wanahitaji mahali salama pa kupumzika. Hiyo ni jambo la msingi na kila kitu I've redio alama na kufuatiliwa hapa chini. Wanahitaji mahali pa kufanya kazi zao bila kusumbuliwa. Ramsey Russell: Nimekuwa nikisikia kwa miaka watu ambao ni, kwa ukosefu wa neno bora, kupambana na makazi. Haifai kusema. Kwa kweli, ndege wa majini wanapaswa kuwa na mahali pa kwenda kuwa bata bila kupigwa risasi. Ni muhimu. Popote katika dunia unapoenda, wanahitaji kuwa na mahali ambapo wanaweza kuwa bata na kufanya mambo ya bata na wasipigwe risasi. Siwezi kukumbuka kama ilikuwa wewe au mtu mwingine kuniambia hadithi kuhusu banding speck, mara moja, kwamba kubadilishana flyways. Ilikuwa imepotea kabisa kwa muda wa majuma machache. Je, wewe ndiye uliyeniambia hadithi hiyo, au ni mtu mwingine? "Mwanamume mmoja wa California, Dixon, alisema: ""Mimi na ndugu zangu wa California, Dixon na ndugu zangu wa California, tunafanya kazi kwa bidii na kwa bidii." Ndege wa California, ambaye anaishi katika Central Valley, California, anaelekea kaskazini na kuwasili katika eneo hili la ndege. Baadhi yao hata <unk>Ross<unk>s geese, hasa <unk> kuja hapa majira ya baridi moja, na kisha alibaki nyuma ya ijayo. Kwa sababu yoyote ile, wao hupita njia za kuruka. Ramsey Russell: Ninatambua. Wakati wale mbawakawa wenye nyuso nyeupe wanapoondoka Louisiana, je, wao huruka kama mwamba hadi Aktiki? Au wao huruka tu? "Kama ""mfano"" wao, wao hupanda njia yao kaskazini, hasa." Ikiwa ndege bado yuko hapa tarehe 20 Februari, kwa kawaida wataruka kwenda Dakota ya Mashariki njiani. Wengi wao, labda tatu ya nne yao <unk> na kwanza ya Februari, wao <unk> ni kufuatilia mstari wa barafu. Wao ni juu ya njia yao. Wao ni kwenda mbali kaskazini kama wanaweza, na kisha wao ni hatua juu ya kusini ya mstari wa miti katika Prairie Canada. Hiyo ni aina ya kitovu chao. Mwaka huu, ilikuwa kusini-mashariki mwa North Dakota. Kwa sababu ya hali ya barafu na theluji, kusini-mashariki mwa North Dakota kulikuwa na mbawakawa wetu wenye nyuso nyeupe kwa zaidi ya siku thelathini, wakisimama huko wakingojea theluji iyeyuke. Lakini miaka mingi, ni Prairie Canada. Mengi huanguka, ni sawa. Ni siku thelathini kutoka wakati wao kuonekana. Ikiwa wanafika huko mwishoni mwa Agosti, kwa kawaida wanarudi mwishoni mwa Septemba. Kwa hiyo inaonekana kama katika siku thelathini - nzuri, mbaya, au mbaya - wanaweza kupata kile wanachohitaji kufanya harakati hiyo Kaskazini au Kusini. Ramsey Russell: Hiyo ni wazimu. Hilo ni jambo lenye kustaajabisha kabisa. Mimi nitakuambia, mchakato mzima wa uhamiaji ni tu ajabu, jinsi wale nyeupe-mashariki itakuwa hoja na kufanya aina hiyo ya mambo. "Kama vile ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama"" na ""Mbwa wa Mnyama.""" Kwa mfano, wewe na mwenzako wa kibinafsi wa ardhi mnatumia muda mwingi na pesa nyingi kwenye ndege wako wa utafiti. Ni wangapi wanaopigwa risasi? "Paul Link: ""Hii ni kweli, lakini ni kweli." Si jambo lisilo la busara. Kwa mujibu wa takwimu za kila mwaka, idadi ya watu wanaopatikana katika maeneo hayo ni asilimia 85 na asilimia 10 ya watu wanaokufa katika maeneo hayo. Kwa hiyo ni ya juu, lakini, ni wazi, vitu hivi ni kuvaa kola. Wao ni uncoated. Yetu ni ya rangi ya kijivu. Baadhi ya watu kuweka kahawia juu, lakini sisi kujaribu kufanya yao kama cryptic kama tunaweza hivyo wao ni vigumu kuona. Kila mwaka, nitakuwa na moja au mbili kwamba kupata risasi off-njia. Wao ama si kuchukuliwa au kutupwa. Tulikuwa na risasi moja katika Arkansas spring hii, siku tatu baada ya goose msimu kufungwa. Mtu huyo alikiri alichokifanya. Yeye ni mwindaji wa maisha yote. Aliona, hakujua ilikuwa nini, na akafanya mfululizo wa maamuzi mabaya. Tulipata kola nyuma kutoka kwake. Watu wengi ni wazuri sana kuhusu hilo. Wao kuelewa nini sisi ni kujaribu kufanya. Ramsey Russell: Geo-marker ni katika kola, si mguu? Paul Link: Siyo kweli. Vifuniko tunavyotumia, havina mipako. Ina paneli tatu za jua. Yote ni kuingizwa katika kola. Ni kifaa pretty laini. Pia tunawafunga. Wamiliki wa ardhi binafsi ambao nimezungumza nao katika miezi michache iliyopita ni wakulima, lakini wanaweka kando baadhi ya michango muhimu ya kibinafsi katika makazi, katika baadhi ya maeneo haya ya kupumzika ambayo Paul anazungumza juu. Sasa, wao ni kuja katika na kuchimba elbow-ndani katika mifuko yao wenyewe na fedha hizi ghali kufuatilia collars wao ni kuweka juu ya hawa white-fronted geese, pia. Ramsey Russell: Jambo moja nilitaka kubeba nje kwa watu kusikiliza, kwamba kweli alivutia mimi kuhusu nini yeye anaita majaribio yake hobby, ni kwamba ni binafsi kufadhiliwa. Ni wamiliki wengi wa ardhi binafsi katika kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana na sehemu za Arkansas, pengine mahali pengine. Wananchi na wakulima wa mashamba ya ardhi wanafanya kazi kwa bidii na kwa bidii na kuandaa fedha kwa ajili ya utafiti huu. """Ninajua serikali ya jimbo na serikali ya shirikisho pia inafanya shughuli kadhaa pamoja naye, lakini nilitaka tu kuelezea kwamba sisi daima tunasikia juu ya umuhimu wa uwindaji katika uhifadhi, wawindaji kama watunzaji." Lakini, mtu, hii ni, kwa ajili yangu, ngazi ya kupita kiasi. Wamiliki wengi wa ardhi ambao wamekuwa wakifanya kazi katika mashamba ya kilimo, wamejiunga na mashamba ya kuhifadhi na kuhifadhi mazingira ya asili ya watu ambao Paul anawaelezea. Sasa, wao ni kuja katika na kuchimba elbow-kuzama katika mifuko yao wenyewe na fedha hizi tracker ghali wao ni kuweka juu ya hizi nyeupe-mzizi, pia. Paul, utaenda wapi kutoka hapa? Baada ya miaka mitano, ni maswali gani unayotaka kujibu? Ni hatua gani unazochukua baada ya miaka mitano ya kutafakari juu ya hili? Kwa hiyo, ni muhimu sana kuchunguza tofauti kati ya maeneo ambayo mbuzi wa mbele nyeupe wanaishi wakati wa majira ya baridi kali na maeneo ya kuishi. Kuangalia nini matokeo ambayo ina juu ya nyingine, baadaye, viwango muhimu. Je, mahali ambapo ndege huyo huchagua kukaa wakati wa majira ya baridi kali huathiri mafanikio yake ya kuzaliana miezi mitano baadaye? Hiyo ni aina ya habari ambayo teknolojia hii ni hatimaye inaruhusu sisi kuangalia. "Mwanzoni, tulijadili juu ya ""mfano"" wa podcast, na baadaye tulijadili juu ya ""mfano"" wa podcast, na baadaye tulijadili juu ya ""mfano"" wa podcast." Hiyo ni aina ya jambo kubwa ijayo kwa ajili yetu sasa, kuangalia wote tofauti katika mikoa kwamba hawa white-fronted geese ni wintering na uteuzi wa makazi. Kuangalia nini matokeo ambayo ina juu ya nyingine, baadaye, viwango muhimu. Je, mahali ambapo ndege huyo huchagua kukaa wakati wa majira ya baridi kali huathiri mafanikio yake ya kuzaliana miezi mitano baadaye? Hiyo ni aina ya habari ambayo teknolojia hii ni hatimaye inaruhusu sisi kuangalia. Kwa mfano, kwa kipekee, goose nyeupe-fronted inaweza kuwa na miaka mitatu ya kuzaliana. Kwa mfano, kama yeye ni majira ya baridi kusini magharibi Louisiana katika mwaka wa kwanza, anafanya hivyo juu ya uhamiaji wake spring, huenda juu na viota katika Arctic na... Tunaweza kusema, kulingana na harakati zao, kama wao ni mafanikio katika vichaka. """Hatujui kuajiri isipokuwa kama tungekuja kupata picha ya ndege huyo baada ya yeye kuonekana tena kwenye nyanda, lakini kuna vigezo vingi sana huko na hasara ya vijana baada ya kuanguka." Katika mwaka wa pili, kama yeye huchagua majira ya baridi katika eneo tofauti, kama yeye ana mbinu tofauti ya uhamiaji wa majira ya kuchipua na juhudi tofauti za kuzaliana baadaye, kwa kweli, kujaribu kuunganisha athari hizo tofauti za msimu na maeneo ya kuanguka, maeneo ya majira ya baridi, uhamiaji wa majira ya kuchipua, na uzazi wa baadaye. Kwa aina zote za ndege wa majini, kipindi muhimu zaidi ni wakati wa kuzaliana. Hiyo ni aina ya ambapo sisi ni wakiongozwa sasa; kujibu maswali haya ngumu ambayo zinahitaji maisha marefu. Unahitaji kitengo cha kudumu kwa misimu mingi ya kuzaliana ili kujibu maswali kama hayo. Baadhi ya bata-mwitu wa mbele nyeupe wanashirikiana, na hilo ni jambo jingine ambalo hatuzungumzi juu yake. Baadhi ya mbawakawa hao wenye nyuso nyeupe wanaweza kuwa na umri wa miaka mitatu, wengine wanaweza kuwa na umri wa miaka kumi na saba. Tunajua hili kwa sababu nimekamata tena bata-bukini ambao wamekuwa wakivaa bendi. Tumebadilisha bendi kadhaa. Hakuna anayejua kwa kweli wana umri gani. Kwa mfano, ndege wa kawaida wa Canada, ambao wana uwezo wa mwili wa kutosha, wanaondoka kwenye nyanda za majani wakati wa majira ya kuchipua na kwenda kwenye kiota. Mitch Weegman anajifunza, kutokana na idadi ya Greenland ya bata-mbuzi wenye nyuso nyeupe, kwamba ni thuluthi moja tu ya wale bata-mbuzi wenye nyuso nyeupe wanaojaribu hata kufanya kiota. Hata wanapokuwa katika hali ileile ya mwili, mwaka baada ya mwaka, ni theluthi moja tu kati yao wanaojaribu kufanya kiota. Sasa, tunafikiri kwamba bata-mwitu wetu wa katikati ya bara ni tofauti. Tunafikiri kwamba watajaribu kila mwaka, lakini Aktiki ni mahali pa uhasama sana miaka mingi. Ni kweli kwamba wakati wa majira ya baridi kali, wakati wa baridi kali, na wakati wa baridi kali, kila kitu kinaweza kuwa na athari, lakini kwa kweli, kwa sababu ya hali ya hewa ya majira ya baridi kali, hakuna kitu kinachoweza kuathiri hali ya hewa. Kila mwaka, wao hujaribu kufanya kiota. Ni wazi, wana viwango vya mafanikio na uzalishaji tofauti sana, lakini hiyo ni aina ya ambapo sisi ni kuelekea. Ni mambo magumu sana ambayo yamebaki. Tuna madereva mzuri juu ya biometrics ya nini spring na kuanguka uhamiaji kuangalia kama. Tunajua ni kilocalories ngapi za nishati zinazohitajika kufanya harakati hizo. Wakati wao kuhamia, wao ni kati ya 850 na 7,000 futi juu ya usawa wa bahari, na wao ni kusafiri kati ya 55 na 70 maili kwa saa. Tuna yote hayo. Sasa, ni kujaribu kufunga katika mambo haya yote ngumu kwa kipindi kirefu cha muda. Hiyo ni ambapo sisi ni kuelekea na mradi sasa hivi. "Mwanamke huyo alisema: ""Nashukuru sana kwa maelezo na majadiliano yenu kuhusu utafiti wenu kuhusu mbuzi aina ya specklebellies huko kusini magharibi mwa Louisiana na nje ya nchi." Je, kuna kitu ambacho sikukuuliza ambacho unaweza kufikiria kusema? Paul Link: Naam, tumekuwa kutoka mwisho mmoja wa njia ya kuruka hadi mwingine. Nadhani sisi got pretty vizuri kufunikwa nyeupe-fronted geese. Ramsey Russell: Tumejadili jambo hilo. Watu wanawezaje kuungana na wewe kwenye mitandao ya kijamii? Kwa mfano, shirika la Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Foundation (LWFFF) lina tovuti ya hivi karibuni. Hiyo ni lawff.org/waterfowl. Wana kurasa kadhaa ambazo zinaangazia miradi mitatu ambayo tunafanya kazi sasa. Kuna maelezo ya kina ambayo unaweza kuona ni nini mbinu zetu, ni nini malengo yetu ya utafiti wa goose nyeupe, maswali ya msingi, haja ya kwa nini tunafanya kile tunachofanya. Pia, kuna kipengele cha kutoa mchango ambapo wanaweza kutoa mchango ikiwa watachagua kuunga mkono miradi hiyo. Tena, hiyo imekuwa mizizi ya miradi hii yote. Watu wengi wanaingia, wakitoa noti ya $ 20 - baadhi yao maelfu - lakini ni juhudi ya msingi. wawindaji na wanariadha ambao ni nia ya hizi Louisiana nyeupe-fronted geese, kwamba upendo spots hizi kama sana kama au wakati mwingine, katika baadhi ya kesi, hata zaidi ya mimi, wao ni kuendesha mambo haya. "Wanawasaidia kukusanya data ili kuboresha uelewa wetu, kutoa maeneo bora kwa ajili ya hawa white-fronted geese, na kutusaidia kujaribu kuelewa vizuri nini kinaendelea. """ Ramsey Russell: Hiyo ni njia nzuri ya kushiriki. Ni akaunti gani ya Instagram ambayo unaweza kuweka picha zako na picha zako? Paul Link: Ni @plink_the_bander. Hiyo ni Instagram yangu. Nimekuwa na shughuli nyingi sana hapa, wiki chache zilizopita, kuwa update watu, lakini hii ni wakati muhimu zaidi ya mwaka. Kama sisi kukaa hapa chini ambapo ni 95o, mambo hayo kwamba wale white-fronted geese na wale mallards na wale bluu-winged na gadwalls na kila kitu kingine kwamba sisi kushikilia karibu na dear kwetu. Hii ni dirisha la siku 30 ambapo kila kitu muhimu kwa jinsi maporomoko yetu yatakavyokwenda kinafanyika. Mimi itabidi kuwa kujaribu kupata kidogo zaidi ya kazi juu ya huko. Kuna mengi ya baridi nesting harakati na mambo yanayotokea sasa hivi. Ni fursa nzuri kwa watu wengi kufikiria nini kinaendelea katika msimu wa nje na ndege hawa, kwa aina ya kuwaweka dialed-katika juu ya nini ni muhimu kwa bata na bata. Ramsey Russell: Ni ajabu. @plink_the_bander Yoall kuangalia ni nje. Yeye posts baadhi ya mambo kweli baridi wakati yeye ni kufanya hii banding, na mimi kweli kama baadhi ya data ramani wewe post ya jinsi ndege kwamba ni kusonga, jinsi mbali ndege kwamba ni kusonga. Ni mambo ya ajabu sana kwangu. Kwa mfano, unaweza kuangalia tovuti ya Shirika la Uvuvi na Wanyamapori la Louisiana, na unaweza kujihusisha na utafiti wa aina hii. Guys, asante yall kwa kusikiliza Duck Msimu Mahali fulani podcast. Tutaonana mara ijayo.