what is this band?

pjnorton

New member
Just shot this goose a little bit ago. Can anyone tell me what the white band around its neck is. It has a traditional band around the leg. [/image]
 
I assume you are talking about a neck collar. It's just another type of marker and the vast majority of time the bird will have a metal band on the leg as well. The white collars used to be for Midwestern states only I believe but they are fairly generic and quite possibly other states are using them now. I have taken 4 birds in Indiana that were wearing white neck collars with black codes. I took one last year that was 9 years old and was missing the leg band. I remember the day it was banded because I was standing in line with two birds and a Purdue intern in front of me dropped her bird and lost it before it received the leg band so it only had a neck collar. The hunters present laughed because we figured some guy would shoot it and only get the neck collar with no leg band. Little did I know.....

http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/BBL/homepage/aboutaux.htm
 
Out here on the west coast, a white neck collar means it is a wusky. It was an attempt to save dusky by breeding them with the local westerns(Great Basins) here in Oregon.
 
Jay,

That is exactly what the band was. I registered it a little while ago and the bird was banded in Ohio 9.5 years ago. Pretty neat expirience for my first banded bird. What a great story about your bird with no leg band. Id hate to know the odds of that happening to anyone again lol. I think I am going to get it mounted if the cost is affordable. Thanks guys for the info
 
PJ, where are you located? Curious where the bird was harvested. A friend of mine killed a double banded mallard a few weeks ago and the bands were so old only the "ARD" and a number "1" could be read on the reward band. The other band was worn smooth...
 
DeWayne,

I harvested the bird on Indian Lake in Northwest Ohio. We shot the other banded bird with it but were unable to retrieve it because it flew 300 yds before it finally fell and the ice was too thick. We just noticed one of the earlier geese we shot in the morning was banded as well. An exciting day for a newbie to say the least
 
Resident breeding Canada geese are marked nationwide with white neck collars. This helps biologists evaluate numerous aspects of the resident goose populations. It may have been marked as part of a study of local movements, survival, or where geese are coming from that are causing problems. Make sure that you call it in to the Bird Banding Lab or report it by internet. They'll send you a report on the specifics of it banding date and location.

Michael, white collars are put on other geese besides "wuskys". The marking of wuskys is to keep them from being counted on the dusky quota and therefore shutting down the goose season. Duskys were never intentionally bred to westerns as an attempt to maintain duskys. A few Duskys were held in a pen at Willapa NWR as cripples and they were released during a storm that wiped out the fence. They lived and have survived and bred with the local western Canada goose in Willapa Bay and the lower Columbia. As managers we have debated for years on what to do about them and how to keep them from being counted as duskys. The collars should help hunters know that they can harvest them at no risk to having their cards punched. I know several hunters who are on a mission to harvest as many wuskies as possible. More power to them and I hope they can shoot every last one of them.
 
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