Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 18/98) - Blame it on American rice and corn farmers.

Strange as it may seem, that is what is killing Northern willow bushes, sedge, goose grass and salinating much of the Central NWT.

At least that is the most popular theory, according to Suzanne Carriere, an ecosystems biologist with the NWT Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development.

The cycle goes like this: lesser snow geese that summer in the North go south for the winter and nest in the southern U.S.

Instead of many of the geese dying off as was the case years ago, a growing number of American corn and rice farms are supplying enough food for more and more of these birds to survive.

When summer returns, the NWT's lesser snow geese population mushrooms and large flocks denude terrain from Manitoba to Arviat while they hunt for food.

As many as six million geese -- several times the levels of the 1960s -- now fly to the North each year.

"It's like 30 people living in the same house with nobody doing the dishes," Carriere said. "No one is replacing food as fast as people are eating it."

And with forage plants gone, salt laid down thousands of years ago when the region was submerged is now contaminating the surface. To combat the growing lesser snow goose population, the arctic goose habitat working group has released a report, Arctic Ecosystems in Peril, recommending several actions to reduce adult snow goose survival.

Since the report's release, the division has conducted two organized harvests out of Arviat, where snow geese are taken by a group of hunters and distributed to residents in Rankin Inlet and Repulse Bay.

A third hunt is likely by the end of May.

The report applauded the Arviat Hunters and Trappers' Organization initiative to study the possibility of taking more geese near the McConnell River.

The two harvests so far yielded more birds than individuals would have caught if they had gone out and harvested for themselves. This is because people in different communities don't have access to the goose-nesting areas.

"We're along the way toward implementing some of the recommendations of the arctic goose report," said Ray Case, manager of technical support for RWED's wildlife and fisheries division.

The Central and Mississippi migration routes have also changed regulations to give hunters an edge, extending the snow geese hunting season, allowing the use of playing taped electronic goose calls and legalizing baiting for snow geese.

"It's humans who are the problem because we changed their winter habitat," said Carriere, who worries some changes may send the wrong signal to hunters.

"The end effect is that through the goose, humans are destroying (Northern) habitat."

But Carriere said she is concerned archaic and long-outlawed methods to hunt geese could become fashionable in Canada once again.

Aside from playing electronic goose calls, this could mean binding live geese as decoys to attract geese to an area or once again allowing hunters to shoot grounded or water-bound geese.