Greenland White-fronted Goose gets hunting reprieve

05/12/2018

The UK and Welsh governments have decided to remove Greenland White-fronted Goose from the list of legal quarry during the open season.

The decision, which has been welcomed by conservation charities such as the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), will ensure that the declining subspecies can no longer be hunted across England and Wales.

Greenland White-fronted Goose breeds in the coastal fringe of west Greenland and winters exclusively in Britain and Ireland, with the largest numbers found in Co Wexford and on Islay, Argyll. The rest of the population is mainly concentrated at regular wintering haunts across western Scotland and north-western and western Ireland. Annual counts show that the population wintering in Britain and Ireland has dropped by a third in the last decade, with only around 20,000 expected this winter, and consequently it is of the highest conservation concern among the UK's geese, being afforded Red status.

Wales and England were the only countries left on the goose's migration route that still allowed them to be hunted – a ban is already in place in Greenland, Iceland, Scotland and all of Ireland.

Continued