When most waterfowlers think of banded birds, they think of mallards captured and fitted with leg bands on the Canadian prairies.
Banding waterfowl has long been usedby state, federal and even Canadian wildlife agencies to keep track of duck and goose species populations, and while the majority of leg bands are placed on captured birds on their northern breeding grounds, there is a strong effort each summer to band birds in Southeast Missouri, specifically the year-round resident Canada geese.
Last week, officials with the Department of Conservation, along with several volunteers, spent three days in Farmington, Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Dexter and Poplar Bluff rounding up Canada geese in an effort to place leg bands on the birds.
"We do this to monitor harvest rates," said MDC wildlife biologist Kevin Brunke, who oversees the Otter Slough Conservation Area in Stoddard County.
Late June is chosen for banding by MDC officials for a specific reason - the birds hatched this spring have yet to grow their flight feathers, and the adults are typically in a molting period, without primary wing feathers. The end result is the birds cannot fly away and are easier to capture.
Early Thursday morning, about 20 MDC staff members from the Southeast Region converged on a small corn field on the Otter Slough Conservation Area, where about 35 geese were feeding. Within minutes, the birds were corralled into a holding pen.
"The idea is to surround them and close in slowly," said Brunke. "They'll ball up tight and walk into the mesh netting trap."
Geese which already had leg bands were inspected and their band numbers documented, while new birds were checked by biologists before bands were placed on their legs. Once banded, each bird was released back into the area from where it came.
Officials then moved to Dexter's Stanfield Lake, where about 50 geese, mostly adults, proved to be a bit harder to capture. Given the expansive water on the lake, staff members used radio-controlled boats to herd the flocks of geese toward the holding pen.
"It normally goes better than this," Brunke said with a laugh. "When you get a bunch of adults together, it makes it a lot harder."
The day's third stop was Dexter City Lake, where a large number of geese were loafing along the bank. Unlike their brethren across town, they were quickly directed toward the temporary holding pen, where staff members could perform their checks and install leg bands.
To finish out the day, officials moved to a pond in the West Bluff Estates subdivision in Poplar Bluff, where more than 300 birds were captured.
"We hit the mother-lode there," said Matt Bowyer, MDC's Southeast Region Wildlife Division supervisor, who noted it was the department's first time to band geese in the city.
"We banded 206 in Poplar Bluff, and probably handled another 100," Bowyer said.
Overall, Bowyer said, he was pleased with the three-day operation.
"We ended up banding about 300 geese," he said, while noting goose production in the region this year "seemed good."
He does caution residents with geese or those visiting local ponds not to feed them bread, popcorn or other non-natural foods. Doing so, he said, can cause a condition called "angel wing," which is a deformity of the wing bones caused by excessive carbohydrates and proteins in those foods. Once a bird develops the condition, it can no longer fly or defend itself, making it easy prey for not only predators, but, especially in subdivisions, roaming neighborhood dogs.