Chico CA Snow Goose Festival

Snow Geese

The Chico Snow Goose Festival celebrates the annual winter waterfowl migration in California's North Sacramento Valley.

Millions of geese, ducks, swans and other birds visit the Sacramento Valley from as far away as the Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, and Siberia, making the valley the most important wintering area along the great Pacific Flyway.

Geese, swans, ducks, and sandhill cranes have been spending their winters in the Sacramento Valley for thousands of years.

Waterfowl and shorebirds migrate south on all the U.S. flyways, but on other routes cold weather keeps them on the move. In the Sacramento Valley, mild winters allow the birds to stay in one area, creating a viewing opportunity nowhere else available.

The Festival features dozens of field trips and workshops that range out into six counties. The field trips spread out into the rice fields, wildlife refuges, and river walks where mild winter weather, abundant food and lots of water draw the avian arrivals.

Local wildlife naturalists lrad field trips to educate participants about waterfowl and other migratory birds. In rice fields and on refuges, birding experts describe how to pick out a swan from a goose from a duck. Other field trip leaders will focus on sand hill cranes and their dancing behavior.

Some trips are scheduled around fly-offs when thousands of snow geese take off as they move to a new feeding. Observers are likely to find ducks and geese as trip leaders have scouted out the best viewing sites.

The Festival also celebrates plant and animal life in the North Sacramento Valley. There are programs on wildlife and habitats in addition to rice fields and refuges.

Some field trips explore habitats including vernal pools, grasslands, nature preserves and even hiking in scenic Sutter Buttes.

Festival workshops explore nature photography, beginning birding, birds of your backyard, watchable wildlife, wood ducks, decoy duck carving, and other wildlife-related activities. Also featured are wildlife art exhibits and nature displays.

A Friends of Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge webcam provides views of a seasonal wetlands pond with migrating waterfowl and raptors. 

For more information, or visit the Snow Goose Festival website at www.snowgoosefestival.org.

Gear and Equipment to Carry for Wildlife Watching

The right gear and equipment can greatly enhance the experience of wildlife watching.

In many cases, binoculars are essential, allowing for a closer look at animals in their natural habitat without causing disturbance.

A camera may also be useful for capturing the beauty of wildlife; even a simple point-and-shoot can suffice for beginners.

Field guides, whether in book form or as a mobile app, are invaluable for identifying and learning about different species.

For those planning to spend extended periods outdoors, appropriate clothing is crucial. Layering is key, with a base layer that manages moisture, an insulating layer to retain warmth, and a protective outer layer to shield against the elements.

Comfortable, waterproof footwear is also important, as conditions can vary from wet marshlands to dry, rocky paths.

A hat and sunglasses will provide protection from the sun, while gloves and a warm hat are necessary for colder climates.

A backpack is usually useful for carrying supplies, which should include water, snacks, a first-aid kit, and other gear.

For the tech-savvy, a smartphone loaded with relevant apps can serve as a multifunctional tool, offering access to field guides, GPS mapping, and the ability to record sightings.

Others may choose low tech gear such as a traditional compass, paper map, and notepad with pencil.

In addition to equipment, patience and respect for wildlife and habitats is important. A useful rule of thumb is to observe without impacting the natural behavior of wildlife.

With the right preparation and gear, wildlife watching can be a rewarding and educational experience, offering a unique glimpse into the lives of wild animals and the ecosystems they inhabit.

Related Information

Songbird Photography Tips

Decline in Hunters Affects USA Deer Management

white-tailed deer | credit: USFWS

Each year, American deer hunters are aging out of the sport. Meanwhile new hunters are not being recruited to replace them. 

Due to the decline in hunters, deer management strategies will need to change to manage populations of whitetails in many states.

That is the conclusion of Penn State’s Duane Diefenbach, one of the leading white-tailed deer researchers in the USA. He suggests that demographic trends of big-game hunters will dictate that wildlife agencies consider modified, or completely new, regulations to manage white-tailed deer populations.

“Recreational deer hunting is the primary tool that’s available to state wildlife agencies to manage the resource, but in the next 10 years we’re going to see a steep decline in the number of hunters,” said the adjunct professor of wildlife ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “A few states still have large numbers of hunters, but this is coming at all the state agencies very quickly. In the next 10 to 15 years, there’s going to have to be changes. The question is, what alternative tools are available to meet this deer-management challenge?”

The North American Model for Wildlife Conservation, which treats wildlife as a public resource not owned by individual landowners, has relied on revenues from the sales of hunting licenses largely to pay for wildlife conservation for more than a century. With fewer hunters, the challenge will be to find new tools to achieve management goals, according to Diefenbach.

Diefenbach outlined concerns about the effects of hunter demographic trends in a chapter of the recently published book, “Harvest of Fish and Wildlife: New Paradigms for Sustainable Management.” 

Diefenbach co-wrote the chapter, “The Future of Managing Ungulate Species: White-tailed Deer as a Case Study,” with Matthew Knox and Christopher Rosenberry, deer biologists with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, respectively.

Research by the trio suggests that the coming decline in hunters will have major impacts on deer populations. Part of the decline is associated with changes in demographics.

“Compared to the general population, demographics and residency of big game hunters have changed little over the past 30 years,” he writes, adding that National Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation surveys of 1991 and 2016 show big game hunters have remained more than 90% male and 97% white; whereas the U.S. population is 48% male and non-whites have increased from 15% to 22% of the population.

In the general U.S. population, there has been an increasingly older age structure, Diefenbach noted. In 1991, 41% of the U.S. population was more 45 years old, which had increased to 52% by 2016. However, hunters more than 45 years old increased from 28% to 60% during the same time period.

In some states, wildlife managers are applying new strategies to control deer populations. Allowing hunters to take multiple deer is one. In Virginia, managers there have been effective at increasing the harvest of antlerless deer by implementing a unique “earn a buck” program.

To participate in the program, once a hunter in Virginia harvests an antlered buck, he or she must then harvest at least one antlerless deer before they can harvest a second antlered buck.

Diefenbach has conducted more than a dozen peer-reviewed studies over the last 20-plus years, carefully monitoring hundreds of deer that were captured and fitted with radio or GPS collars.

Leader of Penn State’s Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Diefenbach has overseen two fawn mortality studies (the latter with a predator-identification component), a fawn stress study, studies on bucks that looked at the effects of antler-point restrictions and dispersal, research on female deer harvest rates and survival, and female deer dispersal.

Diefenbach worked for the Pennsylvania Game Commission for seven years before arriving at Penn State. He also has done projects that looked at developing population estimators to assess deer abundance, estimating hunter-harvest rates and assessing the impacts of selective browsing on forests.

Wyoming Mule Deer Initiative Projects

Mule Deer

In November, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission (WGFC) voted to approve $560,000 for ten projects to support mule deer populations across Wyoming.

Developed through the Statewide Mule Deer Initiative (MDI), the new projects will focus on improving to mule deer habitat and migration paths.

The projects will build upon MDI efforts that have been ongoing for over a decade.

The projects slated for the coming year are expected to benefit nine herds of mule deer and improve 1.2 million acres of habitat.

In Wyoming, Mule deer are an iconic species. They are found in the high plains, great basin desert, the alpine mountains, and everywhere in between.

A statewide Mule Deer Initiative written by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department was adopted by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission in July 2007 and updated in July 2015.

The Mule Deer Initiative outlines factors contributing to declining mule deer populations and identifies strategies to, at minimum, sustain current deer numbers.

source: Wyoming Game and Fish Commission