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SITE NAME
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Svalbard, NyAlesund, Norway
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| Contact details
(phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| // Larry.Griffin@wwt.org.uk // Waterbird Monitoring Unit, c/o Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Wetland Centre, Slimbridge, Glos. GL2 7BT, UK
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PROJECT DETAILS |
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Project name:
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The Goose & Swan Monitoring Programme
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey: |
Team
size: |
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WEATHER
CONDITIONS
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| Date of ice-break on
rivers: |
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| Date of final loss of
snow: |
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BIOTIC
CONDITIONS
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| Rodents abundance evaluation: |
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Breeding conditions:
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Between 25 September 2006 and 8 March 2007, a total of 7,043 Svalbard Barnacle Geese was aged by a single observer at WWT Caerlaverock. The overall proportion of young present in these flocks was 14.6%, ranging from 5.7% to 25.0% within individual flocks. This is the highest percentage of young since 1998, and is well above the current 10-year mean (8.9%
ñ1.78 s.e.), thus representing a good breeding season. Brood size was recorded for a total of 111 families, and the mean
brood size per successful pair was 2.2 goslings, with brood sizes ranging from 1-5 goslings. This is slightly lower than in the previous year, but still higher than the mean for the most recent 10-year period (1997-2006; 1.81, ñ 0.11 s.e.).
Although Svalbard Barnacle Geese had a better than-recent-average breeding season in 2006, they have shown a steady decrease in breeding success over the past 15-20 years, with particularly low outputs in the past seven years. This coincides with the time that the population reached approximately 25,000 individuals, and it is possible that density dependent factors could be causing the depressed productivity (i.e. there are more birds competing for the same resources, so a smaller proportion of them reproduce successfully).
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Rodent dynamics:
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Rodent species recorded:
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
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