About us:
The Fennoscandian Lesser White-fronted Goose project is jointly run by BirdLife Norway and WWF Finland. Below you will find introductions to the two national partner projects.
The Finnish Lesser White-fronted Goose conservation project
The Lesser White-fronted Goose (later LWfG) was legally protected in Finland in 1969, and the species ranked in the highest category in the Finnish Red Data book (CR, Critically Endangered). The Finnish working group for Lesser White-fronted Goose was formed by WWF Finland in 1983, and since then the Finnish LWfG project has been one of the species conservation projects of WWF Finland. Since the 1980's, the Finnish LWfG project has monitored the staging areas of the Lesser White-fronted Goose in Finland annually, made extensive surveys of the breeding areas in Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian Lapland, carried out research work on the biology of the LWfG and interviewed reindeer herders and hikers visiting the potential breeding areas. In recent years, the annual monitoring of the staging grounds carried out by the Finnish LWfG project has also covered western Estonia (April-May), and the Tana River Valley and Varangerfjord areas in northern Norway (May-June, August-September). Information about the alarming situation of the LWfG has been distributed to authorities, organizations and journals concerned with ornithology, hunting and conservation.
Since the 1990's, the Finnish and Norwegian Lesser White-fronted Goose
projects joint as the Fennoscandian Lesser White-fronted Goose project.
Together with colleagues from e.g. Russia, Kazakstan, China and Japan,
an increased effort has been put into the research and conservation of
the main LWfG population which is breeding in the Russian Arctic and
wintering somewhere around the Caspian and the Black Seas (the western
population) and in China (the eastern population). Satellite tracking
and ringing, followed by field surveys of the located sites, has been
the main tool in this work. Since 1996, the Finnish LWfG project has
carried out field research e.g. on Kola Peninsula, Kanin Peninsula,
Yamal Peninsula, Taimyr Peninsula, in north-western Kazakstan (Kustanay
and Astana regions) and in China.
The Finnish Ministry of the Environment and WWF has funded the main
part of the activities of the Finnish LWfG project. The Finnish LWfG
project has official status as an adviser of the Finnish Ministry of
the Environment concerning conservation of LWfG. In the years
1997-2000, major part of the LWfG conservation activities in Finland
were carried out by the LWfG Life-Nature project supported by the
European Union. The Life-project produced wide-ranging internet-pages
about LWfG and the conservation of the species (internet pages in
English; internet pages in Finnish).
Since April 2005, WWF Finland leads an international Life-Nature
project, titled Conservation of Anser erythropus on European migration
route. More information about this project can be found at the project
website at www.wwf.fi/lwfg».
The results of the conservation and research work of the Finnish LWfG
project are reported in the Annual Reports of the Fennoscandian Lesser
White-fronted Goose conservation project - the reports for the years
2001-2003, 2000 and 1999 being available on internet (for links, see
the Main page of this www.piskulka.net portal). Earlier reports are
available as hard copies from WWF Finland. At the moment the chairman
of the Finnish LWfG project (internet pages in Finnish) is Mrs. Minna
Ruokonen and secretary Mr. Jyrki Pynnönen (contact information»).
The Norwegian Ornithological Society Lesser White-fronted Goose Project
The Lesser White-fronted Goose Anser erythropus is now more threatened than ever. A review of the wintering populations of the Lesser White-fronted Goose concludes that the rapid population decline still continues. The species is by BirdLife International listed as globally threatened; i.e. considered to become extinct if the negative trend continues. The world population of Lesser White-fronted Geese has traditionally been divided in three breeding meta-populations; the Fennoscandian, the Central Russian and the Far Eastern. In Fennoscandia the population was estimated to be more than 10 000 individuals in the first half of the century. From the 1950s until the early 1980s, the population declined by 90-95% and the range by at least 50 %. In the period 1980-1996, the decline continued and at present the population counts about 1 % of its former size. This represents approximately 15-25 breeding pairs.
Since 1987, the Norwegian Ornithological Society (NOF) has run the Lesser White-fronted Goose Monitoring Programme. The first years were spent on mapping breeding and staging areas as well as studies on the reasons for the population decline in Norway. These studies revealed that the main causes had to be sought along the migration routes and in the wintering areas. The core problem was, and partly still is, that the staging and wintering grounds for the species are virtually unknown. Due to the steady and alarming decrease in the Fennoscandian breeding population of Lesser White-fronted Goose, actions were needed to locate the staging and the wintering grounds. In 1993 NOF (in co-operation with WWF-Finland and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research) started the planning of a project of locating the staging grounds along the migration routes and wintering grounds for the Fennoscandian population by employing the new technology of satellite transmitters.
The ultimate aim of this project is to turn the negative population trend for the Lesser White-fronted Goose through establishment of protected sites, implementation of management plans and conservation efforts. This can only be carried out through a joint effort from the countries managing breeding populations (Russia, Norway and Finland), and the countries managing staging and wintering populations (Germany, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakstan, Azerbaijan and China).
In 1995 we caught four geese in Finnmark (the northernmost county in Norway) and all of them were equipped with a satellite radio transmitter attached on their back. The satellite signals led us to a previously unknown staging ground on the western coast of the Kanin Peninsula, in Russia. On the background of these results, WWFs work on establishing a protected area in the staging ground on the Kanin Peninsula has already successfully resulted in the establishment of the Nature Reserve Kaninski Federal Zakaznik. In 1997, NOF managed to catch and mount satellite transmitters on three Lesser White-fronted Geese at the Valdak Marshes during spring staging. None of these individuals bred this year, and they all left Central Finnmark already in the end of June and migrated eastwards. Two of them utilized the Kanin Peninsula, while one individual went somewhat further, - to the Kolgujev Island. One of the birds staging at Kanin Peninsula continued to the Pyasina River on the Taimyr Peninsula from where the signals ceased. In 1998, NOF co-operated with WWF-Finland and the Geese and Swans study Group of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Three adult Lesser White-fronted Geese and one gosling where caught at the Taimyr Peninsula, and the adults were fitted with satellite transmitters. See NOFs home pages (see below).
The south-western autumn migration route to the winter quarter for the Fennoscandian breeding population seems well covered, while there is still a lack of knowledge about where the geese migrate after they have reached Kazakstan. The wintering areas for this route are unknown. The study has also shown that breeding birds from Fennoscandia, Yamal - and Taimyr Peninsulas utilize the same route to Kazakstan and that they migrate together.
In addition to the Nature Reserve at the Kanin Peninsula, work is also in progress to reduce the impact of hunting in the staging areas by an extensive awareness campaign directed towards management authorities and hunters. Also in this follow-up work, we co-operate closely with BirdLife International and BirdLife-partners in the countries where staging and wintering areas are localized. NOF has a particular close co-operation with the Finnish Lesser White-fronted Goose Conservation project run by WWF-Finland. Field work has been carried out in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Kazakstan and Azerbaijan.
More information can be found at the internet pages about NOFs LWfG project:
