SnowGoose_ShortStopping_Stutzenbaker_Charles_Sawyer_Rob_PortArthurTX_Oct2009_ReelNA.mp3

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:00:00] This thing - "goose wars" - I don't know if that's really the right term for it.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:00:05] But, years ago, and it started probably in the forties, the geese started spending more time on the several national wildlife refuges in the Midwest. These were all Canada geese.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:00:20] About that same time, Louisiana started noticing that they were getting fewer and fewer of the large Canadas, the bigger variety that weighed seven, eight, nine pounds. And we began seeing fewer and fewer of those big birds here in Texas, although we didn't have as many as they had in Louisiana.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:00:40] Well, anyway, immediately the Louisiana state agency people said, "Well, the reason we're not getting these geese is because you're stopping them. You're shortstopping."

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:00:50] And of course, the states up there, and the federal government said "No", said, "We're protecting our birds and you guys in the South are shooting them out. You're killing too many of them."

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:01:01] So, there was what they call here in Texas, "a Mexican standoff", is two hard heads butting together.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:01:08] And so, in order to make things better in Louisiana, they started trapping geese in the Midwest, putting them in trucks and sending them to Louisiana ... It was a co-operative thing, as I understand it, between the states and the federal government...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:01:23] And the 80,000-acre Rockefeller refuge over at Grand Chenier in Louisiana, built some big pens. And they brought those birds down there. And I can't remember whether they trimmed the wing feathers or whether they disabled the muscle in the wing, but they eventually built up what I would call a captive flock. They had maybe as many as a thousand birds, you know, 500 somewhere like that. And some of those birds bred. They fed those birds and they closed the season in Louisiana.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:01:54] But those birds never did really build up in large numbers. They were trying to build up a southern breeding flock of large Canada geese ... And it just smacked in the face of biology because those birds were destined to breed way up north under those climatic conditions and migrate south.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:02:14] And that program at Rockefeller lasted many, many years. And as far as I know, it just faded away into obscurity.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:02:24] Well, shortly after that, we started looking at the inventory records. And the national refuges were picking up tremendous numbers of snow geese, ... particularly in Missouri and Iowa, and to some degree in South Dakota. And we were looking at maybe a quarter of a million birds on these refuges in December, january, where just a few years earlier, there had been no birds.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:02:51] And what was happening was that the Fish and Wildlife Service initiated an evaluation procedure for those refuge managers based on "goose-days". Somehow, you mathematically multiply the number of geese times the number of days, and came up with a goose-use-days figure. And that was used partially to evaluate the refuge manager's ability to manage the refuge.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:03:16] And we found out about that. And then, of course, we put all that together with the fact that those birds were spending more and more time in the north. And we were really concerned that we were going to be confronted with the same thing with snow geese, that Louisiana had experienced with Canadas.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:03:33] So there was a long set of dialogues and people in the North and Fish and Wildlife Service defended their position that they weren't doing anything wrong.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:03:41] And we found out that this one refuge manager ... was violating the refuge standard. He was cutting the corn. They had a dictate that you planted corn, but you just left it on the stalk. And he was out there with a mowing machine, mowing it down...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:03:59] It became a bad situation where personal feelings got involved.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:04:04] So we flew to the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa in two planes. Took the Louisiana State plane. We took our state plane. We flew up there in formation...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:04:15] We flew over that. We didn't tell them we were coming, which was, in retrospect, not the right thing to do, but we flew us an aerial survey and took pictures over the refuge, and then we came down and took the rooftops off the refuge building. We buzzed them...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:04:30] And we landed in just a precariously small strip. We were flying a twin engine. I was afraid we weren't going to make it in there, but we made it in and landed.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:04:40] Of course, they came and find out who we were, and the refuge manager got so mad I thought he was going to have a heart attack...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:04:47] Of course, before we got in the airplane and left, it had already gotten to Washington and all the other state agencies. So, boy, there was a lot of animosity towards Texas and Louisiana, towards the several of us that were on that trip...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:00] But anyway, you know, the situation just got worse and worse. And we had a lot of meetings. We had a special meeting in Kansas City where everybody came.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:09] And so finally the federal government, state agencies, said, "All right. What do you people in Texas and Louisiana want? What do you want out of this?"

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:16] And so we said, "What we want is a restoration of waterfowl distribution in the 1940s, or something like that."

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:26] And there was a long silence. And then they said something to the effect, "You know that's impossible."

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:31] And it was impossible.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:33] Anyway, it finally just died down.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:36] I think what we did do is that we forced a little bit different operation in the national refuges where individual managers weren't trying to just keep birds as long as they could...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:47] But the distribution of geese has changed. There's a much retarded flight coming south because these birds stop at both state and federal wildlife areas.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:05:58] They spend more time. They get here later.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:06:01] And right today or this coming year, there'll be a really a large number of snow geese up in north Louisiana and to some degree in Arkansas. Those birds have found the rice fields and the grain fields there.

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:06:15] So there are more birds spending more time north of the traditional coastal area now than there was historically...

Charles Stutzenbaker [00:06:23] But the land has changed. The land use has changed.