Overabundance of lesser snow and ross geese has caused alteration of arctic vegetation in the canadian arctic and subarctic

Attempted control of these goose populations has not succeeded and there is concern that alteration of vegetation communities by these geese may impact arctic ecosystems. This proposal seeks support for continuing work on both ross and snow geese at karrak lake from 2024 to 2025 to measure population trajectory during continuing efforts to reduce these populations. Work to date at karrak lake queen maud gulf bird sanctuary QMG has included nesting studies for population size and recruitment estimation and banding studies for survival estimation. Such information for ross geese can only be acquired at QMG a region where more than 95 percent of the continental population nests. Precise annual estimates of breeding population size for both ross and midcontinent snow geese since 1993 is available only from the karrak lake nesting colony. IT provides a most valuable and unique long term record from which assessments of management actions can be evaluated.