Photo by Cathy & Gordon ILLG

A fresh Canada goose is the traditional and highly prized Christmas main course for many outdoor-oriented families. In the Pacific Northwest, the most common images of goose hunting tend to depict settings east of the Cascade Mountains. High Desert marshes and shrub-steppe wetlands have historically attracted large flights of migrating geese, and in the decades since irrigation increased the region's forage base, tens of thousands of Canadas winter on dry-side farmlands, state wildlife areas and federal refuges. These birds provide consistent and productive shooting for hunters throughout the fall in such places as the Columbia Basin, Snake River, Klamath Marsh and Malheur Lake.

However, each autumn, the bays and estuaries along the Pacific Northwest's ragged coastline also attract thousands of migrating geese of several different subspecies. Enough of these birds remain through the winter to provide the main course for many succulent Christmas feasts.

"When the migration is on, we note many flocks passing over the breakers on their journey south," E. A. Kitchen wrote in his 1949 volume, Birds of the Olympic Peninsula. "At first the flocks seem to contain only the one variety, whatever the species may be. Later on I have found the flocks more mixed, made up of all kinds of geese. For example a friend of mine and I shot into a flock of 12 geese near the mouth of the Queets River, securing four birds, of which three subspecies were represented: namely, Common Canada Goose, Lesser Canada Goose and Cackling Goose. This was late in the season, after most of the geese had gone through."

Most Northwest goose hunters are aware that this mingling of sub-species along the coast has made things difficult for waterfowl managers in recent years. This is because populations of dusky and Aleutian subspecies of geese declined, resulting in low numbers in the 1980s, while other subspecies increased to the point that they began to cause considerable crop damage on the lower Columbia, the Oregon coast and the Willamette Valley. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife responded by maintaining general Canada goose seasons for the abundant subspecies and creating September seasons aimed at harvesting local birds before the threatened geese arrive. However, in areas where dusky geese winter with other subspecies, hunters have been required to pass a goose identification test to receive a hunting permit. Dusky and Aleutian geese have been off-limits, and all goose hunting has been prohibited in Tillamook County, Oregon, an area in which Aleutians tended to concentrate.

Outside of the range of the threatened subspecies, however, waterfowlers have continued to hunt Canada geese without complications. Aleutian geese numbers have also increased dramatically since the late 1990s, and last July Oregon removed them from its state threatened species list. The difficulties remain for dusky geese, and waterfowlers will still have to pass the test this season to hunt productive areas like Washington's Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor, and Oregon's Lewis and Clark NWR, Sauvie Island and Willamette Valley. But waterfowlers can pursue their Christmas goose without restrictions at Skagit Bay, Hood Canal and Dungeness in Washington and at Bandon Marsh and Coos Bay along the Oregon coast. Freelancing goose hunters can also enjoy fine sport for locally produced birds in the network of small bays and estuaries where pockets of public land provide access.

PUGET SOUND CANADAS
More geese are killed in Puget Sound's inland sea than in any other area of Western Washington. Although a large percentage of the birds taken in the North Sound are snow geese, hunters looking for the larger and tastier Canadas can find birds as well. The Skagit Wildlife Area, which consists of 13,000 acres divided into several separate units between the mouths of the Skagit and Stillaguamish rivers, is the largest public waterfowling area in Puget Sound. The wildlife area contains mudflats on Skagit Bay, grain plots, tidally influenced sloughs and upland areas. A boat launch near the wildlife area headquarters lets hunters work the salt marsh fingers and Skagit Bay.