26 March 2013

This beautiful small goose is heading toward extinction.

The red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis) breeds in arctic Russia and winters at only five sites along the Black Sea in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine.  Though protected by law it faces many challenges, from land use changes to illegal hunting.

It was already listed as threatened when suddenly, 10 years ago, half the population simply disappeared.  50,000 birds. Gone.  No one knows what happened.  Did they forsake the Black Sea for a new winter home?  Did something go radically wrong where they breed?

Now listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, the red-breasted goose population continues to decline.  Another such disappearance would mean the end so researchers from Britain’s Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds have fitted 11 red-breasted geese with tags to track their movements.

Nine geese received GPS data packs that will log their winter locations at the Black Sea.  Two received satellite tags that will track their migration from Bulgaria to the breeding grounds in Siberia.

Perhaps the data will reveal the mystery.

Read more about the study here.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the image to see the original)