Greenland white-fronted geese winter almost entirely in Ireland and western Scotland, with welfare challenges from hunting pressure in Greenland, agricultural habitat change, and climate variability.
Greenland white-fronted geese face welfare challenges across their annual cycle. Hunting in Greenland, where they are legally hunted, causes direct mortality and injury to wounded birds that escape. Climate change in Greenland is altering breeding habitat and food availability, affecting body condition of birds arriving at wintering grounds. In wintering areas, agricultural intensification has reduced the nutritional quality of traditional lowland habitats, forcing birds to use suboptimal food sources. Disturbance by farming operations and recreational activity at roost sites causes chronic stress that increases energy expenditure during a critical body-condition maintenance period.