Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Fowlers alarmed at low numbers of pinks
Scottish wildfowlers have reported fewer than usual sightings of pink-footed geese at a number of key sites in recent months
Wildfowlers have raised concerns over very low numbers of pink-footed geese in Scotland. The bulk of pinkfeets should have arrived on the northern and eastern coasts by now, but there appears to be low numbers of the birds at several key sites.
Wildfowler Gary Bruce was among those raising the alarm over the small numbers. He told Shooting Times:
“We are seeing far fewer pinks than we would normally expect. Some of the farms on which we shoot are practically deserted, and others are a long way down on the typical counts for this time of year.”
Counts from the Montrose Basin do appear to support these concerns. Over the past three years, goose numbers in the basin have typically peaked at between 65,000 and 84,000 pink-footed geese in mid- to late-october. However, the highest count so far this year has been just 42,000.
Wildfowlers on the Solway have also reported lower than normal numbers of pink-footed geese.
Iceland experienced an outbreak of bird flu over the summer as migrating wildfowl brought the disease back from their wintering grounds further south. However, there is nothing to suggest that pink-footed geese have been particularly hard hit. The summer goose count numbers from Iceland are not yet available, and wildfowl experts were not keen to comment until better data is available. But the general view among the scientists Shooting Times spoke to was that warm weather and westerly winds have probably delayed migration this year, and that the missing geese will arrive when the weather changes.
SAID WHAT
“The general view among scientists was that warm weather has delayed migration”
However, north-coast wildfowler Alan Gunn was dismissive of this reasoning behind the low numbers, saying: “I have known the geese arrive late in previous years when the wind has been consistently against them, but this is far beyond what we have experienced in the past. It is really very worrying.”