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Dieren en planten

Birds   Geese   Greylag goose   Barnacle goose   Brent goose   Bird Protection   Swimming birds   

Water en land

Landforms   Coastal areas   Salt marshes   Biotope   Man-made land   Grassland (biotope)   Verges (biotope)   

Mens en Milieu

Nature management   Agrarian nature management   Nature policy   Nature Protection Act   Flora and Fauna Act   Bird Directive   

Brent goose

size:

56-61 centimeters; 110-120 centimeters wingspan

color (adults):

short black bill, short black tail with white underside, dark gray-brown belly, head and neck black with white patch on both sides of the neck

food:

eel-grass, sea lettuce, grass, winter grains

threats:

Arctic fox

Dutch status:

migratory and winter guest

habitat

nests on tundra

reproduction:

3-5 eggs

life span:

11 years (maximum known age: 28 years)

  • Dut: Rotgans
  • Lat: Branta bernicla bernicla
  • Eng: Brent Goose (Dark-bellied Brent goose)
  • Fren: Bernache cravant
  • Ger: Dunkelb. Ringelgans (Ringelgans)
  • Ital: Oca colombaccio
  • Dan: Morkbuget Knortegis
  • Nor: Ringgis
  • Frisian: Rotgoes
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Dark-bellied Brent goose, Jeroen Reneerkens (jeroenreneerkens@hetnet.nl)

Brent goose

Just imagine having only two months to lay eggs, brood them and raise the young before your food disappears under a thick layer of snow and ice. That is what dark-bellied brent geese endure every year when flying far beyond Spits Bergen to the peninsula of Taymir, on the northeastern coast of Siberia. And if it stays too cold for too long after they arrive, they won't make a nest at all and have made the long 4500 kilometer-trip for nothing. They return to the wadden region, to spend the winter in a place less barren than up north.

Gooseland


Brent goose, Foto Fitis, www.fotofitis.nl

Since the early 1970s, farmers in the wadden region strongly protested the problems they were encountering from grazing brent geese in the spring. Since then, many initiatives have been made to solve the problem between the birds and the farmers.
The 110-hectare large farm Zeeburg was converted into a brent goose farm close to the marsh area the Schorren on Texel. The farm is managed to serve the needs of the brent geese. Thousands of birds stay on this farm from the end of September till the end of May, leaving the surrounding farmland in peace.

  • Nesting under rigorous circumstances

    It's not easy to raise chicks on the barren tundra. Breeding success for brent geese strongly depends upon the lemming population in the nesting area. When there are few lemming, arctic fox switch over to hunting young brent geese. In that case, brent geese either delay nesting or depart for a fox-free island. Other smart birds nest in the vicinity of snow owls. Snow owls keep arctic fox at a safe distance. However, snow owls will also eat young brent geese. The tundra also has definite advantages for the geese; the sun does not set in the short polar summers, so that they can see the predators coming from a far distance.

  • Migration and grazing

    Brent geese are herbivores. Up till 1935, they grazed primarily on eelgrass which grew everywhere on the shallow Dutch mud-flats. They could also graze on the marshes. But the eelgrass disappeared due to a disease and many marshes were turned into polders. The birds had to look for other sources, such as farmland where they graze on grass and other agricultural crops. This has presented a big problem for farmers.
    In order to survive their migration of 4500 kilometers, they must graze large amounts of grass. The goose can put on weight quickly in cold springs, when the plants contain a lot of protein. In warm springs, the nutrients are used up in plants that grow more rapidly, making it more difficult for the birds to put on weight. In such springs, the geese arrive in Siberia in poor condition and few young are born.

  • Protective measures
    • Monitoring: Network Ecological Monitoring
    • Policy: Target Species List
    • National legislation: Flora and Fauna Regulation
    • European Agreement: Bird Directive
    • International: Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA), Bern Convention, Bonn Convention

Meadow full of geese