Goose Terrestrial Assessment - Wapsuk National Park

Wapusk National Park protects a vast landscape of coastal salt marshes, countless ponds, and a diversity of boreal-tundra interface habitats, and serves as staging areas for migrating birds, including the Lesser Snow Goose (LSGO). Over the last few decades LSGO populations have increased exponentially due to multiple factors the LSGO is now considered hyper-abundant. Grazing LSGO create large disturbed and barren areas altering vegetation, soil, and ponds, and affecting the ecological integrity of the parks terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. To assess the extent of goose impacts on vegetation, large spatial scale transects were created by combining selected Hudson Bay Project (HBP), led by Dr. Robert Rockwell, American Museum of Natural History, New York and Parks Canada monitoring sites from different projects in several locations north of the Broad River. The rapid goose terrestrial impact assessment protocol, developed by Dr. Abraham for research on Akimiski Island in James Bay, uses a 100 m2 plot to assess vegetation by functional groups and sub-sample the number of goose droppings. The percent coverage of barren ground (shortened to % barren) is used as coarse assessment of goose terrestrial impact for ecological integrity monitoring for state-of-the-park reporting.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated April 17, 2026, 21:40 (UTC)
Created April 17, 2026, 21:40 (UTC)
contact_email chantal.ouimet@pc.gc.ca
contact_person {}
criticality_level ["educators", "nongovernmental_organizations", "scientists", "students"]
data_dictionary []
geographic_scope []
open_canada_collection primary
open_canada_date_published 2017-10-01 00:00:00
open_canada_keywords {"fr": ["Petite oie des neiges", "parc national Wapusk", "dommages causés par les oies", "date d’éclosion moyenne", "dégradation de l’habitat", "végétation", "surveillance de l’intégrité écologique", "évaluation rapide de la végétation", "projet de la baie d’Hudson"], "en": ["Lesser snow geese", "Wapusk National Park", "Goose damage", "mean hatch date", "habitat degradation", "vegetation", "ecological integrity monitoring", "rapid vegetation assessment", "Hudson Bay Project"]}
open_canada_subject ["nature_and_environment"]
sensitivity_level unrestricted
title_fr Évaluation de l'impact terrestre des oies - Parc national Wapusk
update_frequency as_needed