The lives of Geese

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland today for thousands of farmers worry about lead that flock of geese can be a carefree life - day after day, year after year.

How is the farming of brent geese?

The Brent Goose (Branta bernicla) owes its name to the German striking white neck ring, similar to the wood pigeon. It belongs to the genus of sea birds, ducks and geese.

The Brent Goose is quite small, it is one of the social animals. Among the sea geese, it is both the smallest and darkest. The Brent Goose is a classic migratory bird. There are three subspecies of this species of goose, which in different parts of the earth to hibernate. The Brent Goose dunkelbäuchige stays in the winter like for example in the Wadden Sea to the North Sea. The schwarzbäuchige type overwinters primarily on the Pacific coast, but also sometimes found on the coasts of Japan. Hellbäuchige the subspecies prefers the southeast coast of England for the winter. A special feature of the barnacle goose, while the train is that it does not fly in the familiar V-formation. This species of goose has no genetically fixed excursion, as is the case with the stork in the case. The offspring learns the route of the parents. The Brent Goose likes it cold. It breeds mainly in the arctic cold desert, the arctic tundra of Eurasia and North America. She is a faithful animal. However, she loses her partner, she seeks a new one. In June, the breeding begins.

Laying in birds nesting colonies between three and five eggs. The incubation period is between 24 and 26 days. In general, the breeding period, only 40 days. In mid-August the young birds fledge. For about the same time, the full moult of the adults completed. your preference for grasses and herbs is often after the Brent Goose on seaweed-green algae or land. Much to the chagrin of farmers to bring down the birds also like the grass and Wintersaatflächen the farmers. The hunger of the birds is often so great that they eat down the vegetation is extremely short. Meanwhile, farmers are compensated for the damage, but the passage of the Brent goose not welcome. In the thirties of last century saw many brent geese based on a fungus that had infested the seagrass populations. In addition, the birds were hunted extensively. As a result, the population went from 10 to 20 percent of the numbers back to the beginning of the last century.

It was introduced for the protection of the population, including a ban on hunting. All three subspecies have joined to date about a stock of 570,000 animals.