August 5th Options

[Joe Hirt]

How long does it take to tag all the geese?
Do their bites hurt?

[Leslie_Pierce]

Hi Joe,

Well, it took us about 4 days to capture and process 1400 geese, which is about 350 birds a day! We rounded up three or four flocks of birds a day, so about 100 birds per flock. And, finally, each flock took us about 2 hours to process, so about 50 birds an hour or close to 1 bird per minute! Wow, I didn't realize we were so fast! Of course, we had 3 people banding, so that brings the time to 3 minutes per bird. Some of the geese were quick to process, like the ones that already had bands or the ones that weren't fighting very much. Some birds took a little longer, like the squirmy ones!

Yes, their bites hurt! There is a picture in the journal of the crew showing off some of the bruises the snow geese gave us! They are very good at getting just a little bit of skin with the end of their beaks, and then twisting! So, you can imagine the bruise they leave behind.

Their claws on their feet are very sharp, too. Most of us had arms and hands with bloody scrapes and cuts!

It was great fun though!

Ms Pierce