Middle Creek Leg Band Data

[Goosehunter]

Turns out this leg band data is on the PGC website, I never knew this and was only looking under Waterfowl all these years. But thanks to Mr Ian Gregg for giving me the step by step clicks to get this info.
There really is a mountain of info to be gained from leg band data and one of the tidbits is what the PGC refers to as Gosling Production. There are 13 years worth of info, starting in 2000 thru 2012, (I was a bit disappointed that 2013 & 2014 are not posted yet). So, I did a bunch of math and posted below are 3 year averages, the last column is 4 years. Since both Middle Creek & Pymy have all 13 years of leg band data available and are comparable because they are both PGC Waterfowl Management Areas, it made sense to me to look at the numbers.

Here's what the PGC says about Gosling Production during June 2012.
"During June 2012, 3,000 resident Canada geese were banded at 33 locations across 20 counties in Pennsylvania. Gosling production as measured by the statewide percentage (35%) of goslings in the banded sample was below the 1988 to 2011 average."

"While we acknowledge that our measures of gosling recruitment are relatively crude, especially at the individual stratum level, we believe year-to-year comparisons of the statewide figures are informative. More rigorous calculations of productivity would be possible, but the additional effort involved in data collection and analysis would probably not be justified because this demographic parameter is not a crucial information need for resident goose management."

So...I calculated the 3 year averages for MC, Pymy and the Statewide percentage of Gosling Production, looking to see how MC compares to both Pymy and then Statewide. These are the number of Geese that were leg banded, broken down by Adults, Juvies and Totals, then the % of Gosling Production (%Gos) at each location.



......2000-2002...2003-2005...2006-2008...2009-2012
MC
Adults...130.........252............258..........302
Juvies...318.........169............109..........142
Totals...448.........421............367..........444
%Gos.....71%........40%............29%..........32%
Pymy
Adults...333.........234............462..........509
Juvies...405.........235............591..........613
Totals...738.........469...........1053.........1122
%Gos....54%.........50%............56%..........54%
Statewide
Adults...4278........5041..........5143........6656
Juvies...3165........4748..........3956........4721
Totals...7443........9789..........9099........11377
%Gos.....42%..........48%...........44%.........41%

[Goosehunter]

Here's the last 7 years, 2006 thru 2012.
Since both MC and Pymy are Waterfowl Management Areas you would expect their percentage of Goslings to be higher than the Statewide average.
Only goes to reason that the rest of the State doesn't have all the goose nest structures or the goose habitat available like at MC and Pymy. But as you can see Pymy has a 55% Gosling Production compared to MC at 31%, meanwhile Statewide is 42%. This seems to show how much better the Gosling Production is at Pymy.

Just by the sheer number of leg bands put on, you can see that the goose population is much larger at Pymy than MC.

........2006-2012....Avg bandings per year....
MC
Adults.....560.............80
Juvies.....251.............35
Totals.....811.............115
%Goslings..31%
Pymy
Adults.....971.............138
Juvies.....1204............172
Totals.....2175............310
%Goslings..55%
Statewide
Adults.....11799...........1685
Juvies.....8677............1239
Totals.....20476...........2925
%Goslings..42%


It's hard to imagine how really poor the gosling production is at MC. Pymy is very similar to MC in that they are both run by the PGC and both are managed for waterfowl. You'd think both areas would have similar gosling production. At the very least you would expect MC to have a better gosling production than the Statewide average. Afterall MC has over 100 manmade goose nest structures and is supposedly managing for Canada Geese.
Meanwhile the Resident Manager of MC is still proclaiming the Resident Goose population is not growing due to the 12 gauge.
I'm calling for a new Resident Manager at MC, Jim Binder is obviously not qualified to do the job. 

[Dutch]

Must have been the weather at MC.