Welfare of wild snow geese during breeding, examining the welfare implications of overabundant colonies, incubation challenges, gosling vulnerability, and the management of breeding populations.
Snow goose breeding welfare must be understood at multiple scales simultaneously. Individual geese experience nesting-related welfare challenges — predation of eggs and goslings, energetic demands of incubation, and the vulnerability of newly hatched young. At colony level, the density of overabundant populations creates competition that reduces individual nesting success. At ecosystem level, colony overabundance destroys the tundra habitat that other species depend on, causing broader ecosystem welfare harm. Population management interventions including egg oiling are designed to reduce population growth without individual welfare harm to adults. The welfare of the tundra ecosystem — including the dozens of species whose habitat is being destroyed — must be weighed against the welfare of individual snow geese in management decisions.