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Remington
10-11-2005, 10:18 PM
Today at work I noticed a flock of geese sitting in a field feeding, One Goose had a black band around its neck with the white letters CZT. Anyone know what they mean?

Chris,

ruger#1
10-11-2005, 11:05 PM
hey dano i found this leg band off of a goose, when i was working by mill lake in abby in the early 80s. avise fish& wildlife service write washington- d.c. u.s.a. 578-15116. whats it meen?

Dano
10-11-2005, 11:24 PM
It's an identification band just like a leg band, don't know where it's from but you may try the Fish and Wildlife Branch for more specific info.
The large neck bands make it possible to view and ID flocks and keep track of birds by using binoculars (normally they get leg bands returned when a bird leg band is recovered). I've shot Gadwal in the Pitt Polder Marsh that had a blue band across the bill and leg band as well. Same thing, just a visual aid to observe the birds at a distance.
Back in the late 1970's I shot a goose on the Pitt River that had a yellow neck collar (T-55). It was released in the Pitt Polder as part of the goose project started by the Pitt Waterfowl Society. My dad (Bill Otway) and his buddy Richard Trethewey worked hard to get the lower mainland goose project going in about 1972. They brought in about 500 geese to the fraser valley from the prairies and I can remember dad and I going up to Enderby to collect goose eggs and catch goslings that were brought down here to start the base group of geese introduced to this area.
There were goose pens all over the valley from Stanley Park, the Serpentine Fen, Minnekada Ranch, Widgeon Creek, Maple Ridge, and up in the Harrison and Chilliwak areas as well (I can't remember all the areas, I was only about 14 then....). The birds were wing clipped and hope was they would stay the first year and when their new plumage grew back, they would migrate from here in the winter and return in the spring to nest. Unfortunately for the general public, the winters started to get milder then and the geese never did migrate and with the decline in hunting pressure and areas open to hunting, the geese have prospered into the current numbers and become a nuisance to parks, golfers and beaches everywhere around here. I guess most of us hunters look at it as just a large, successful project!
Dano
I guess I kind of sidetracked your post with the history lesson, hope that's ok.
One last note, my hunting buddy shot a duck in Burns Bog a few years ago that had a wire exiting from it's back. It was a tracking transmitter!

Dano
10-11-2005, 11:43 PM
hey dano i found this leg band off of a goose, when i was working by mill lake in abby in the early 80s. avise fish& wildlife service write washington- d.c. u.s.a. 578-15116. whats it meen?

All band records are kept in the same place, even the ones from Canada. Kind of late to send it in now but if you had back then, they used to send a certificate to you with where and when the bird was banded. I think all you get now is a letter telling you this info.
Here's a certificate I recieved for a Mallard I shot by the Pitt River bridge.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/299bandinfo1-med.JPG

Kirby
10-12-2005, 12:55 AM
Never heard of banding the neck, usually just the legs. and there should be more numbers to a band, maybe a domestic that got loose and joined up?

Ruger, the numbers will correspond to a person, date, time, location of tagging, and anytimes that band has been recorded.

If you get really lucky, and get a goose with a gold colored band, get ahold of Enviroment Canada, and you should get 100 bucks for it.

Here is a pic of some banding I got to do this summer while working for ducks Unlimited, 88 geese, in 5 hours. Those things are alot easier to handle after shooting them!
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/140banding.jpg

Kirby

BCHunter
10-12-2005, 03:01 PM
kirby how are you guys catching them to band them?

ruger#1
10-12-2005, 05:41 PM
looks like your haveing fun there kirby.where did you guys band them.

Dano
10-12-2005, 08:14 PM
Hi Kirby.

What's that you have the goose in? Some kind of bag?
When we banded geese back in the 70's, I was told to tuck the head under the wing and the goose would "go to sleep". One time the goose went nuts and got out from under my arm. The wing hit the back of my head and I barely held on (and I saw stars!). The wildlife guy looked at me and said with a laugh, "you must have let him peek!" I had a big lump there for a week.
We banded the geese in the spring, I think they were in the molting stage and we would drive them into a pen. We would use long handled salmon nets to pull the geese out and the biologist would sex them and put the band on.
There was a pen at dad's buddies place that had young wood ducks in it. It had a black nylon net roof and ducks would come in and try and land only to hit the net and fall through. We banded all the ducks in the pen each fall and very few were recovered in our area afterwards.

Kirby
10-13-2005, 12:45 AM
that banding was done in Tunkwa lake, like Dano said, they were in molting stage, so that they can't fly, we use kayaks to drive them onto the beach, then herd them into a pen. We were using a long handled salmon net as well for getting them out.
Once penned we pulled the hatch years out first, to prevent them from getting crushed from the matures. We would put their heads under their wings, and they would calm right down, however, because the pen was so full, we took a bunch out, and bagged them right away, to give more room in the pen. Like Dano said, when they got loose, they could hit hard, I got smacked hard enough I though it had slpit my lip.
Once we were sitting, we would put the goose between our legs, like I had it, then open the anus, to see if it was male/female by the presence of a penis, then would check the stage of molt, by the length of new feathers, and the down around the neck, once that was done, we would then band the leg.

I also managed to do some banding on ducks in August, when doing that we would also take a swab, and test for Avian Flu in hatch years. With ducks, we bait them with corn, and oats for dabblers.

Kirby

redlegdrake
10-26-2005, 06:09 PM
If I see a goose with a neck band I swing right for it first. They look nice on your neck, on your mantle or the best on your wall still on the bird as a mount. If the bird had a neck band it had a leg band to. I can sometimes pick them out when the birds fly in. I always shoot for them to if I see them.