Monitoring Data

Various data sources are used as part of the annual decision making cycle for implementing the International Species Management Plan (ISMP) for the Svalbard Pink-footed Goose. Relevant demographic, weather and hunting bag data are used in the compilation of two reports used to guide management decisions:

1. Population Status Report
2. Adaptive Harvest Management Report

These reports give an annual description and summary of the relevant monitoring data and can be found in the Annual Reports section of this website.

This monitoring data is also available below for all years collected as a downloadable excel spread sheet. It contains 4 worksheets: 

1. Population data: annual population estimates, proportion of juveniles & average brood size.
2. Harvest bags: annual total harvest bags for Denmark and Norway.
3. Temperature data: number of days in May in which mean temperature was >0°C (TempDays), and the cumulative sum of temperatures for days in which mean temperature >0°C (TempSum).
4. Wing survey: number of wings returned as part of the Danish Wing Survey

If you have and comments, queries or require more information about this data please contact the International Working Group Coordination Unit.

Monitoring wounding

The level of wounded birds among the pink-footed goose population is also monitored. X-ray images of captured geese are analysed to estimate the number birds carrying shotgun pellets after hunting. This research is part of ongoing ISMP monitoring actions, carried out in collaboration between Aarhus University, the Danish Nature Agency and Norway's Environment Directorate.

Details of this monitoring programme, actions to reduce wounding and the latest results can found here.

Updated: 12-05-2016