Where, you might ask, is Shuyak Island? It is the (much) smaller of two large islands directly to the north of Kodiak. See this map? Kodiak is the biggest island. Just above it is Afognak. And the little blob up at the top is Shuyak.
You can get there by boat or float plane; we rode in the refuge's research vessel, the Ursa Major II, with Jeff at the helm. (Jeff is in charge of everything to do with boats for the refuge, and he's exceedingly good at it. He's also married to Robin.) At the Ursa's cruising speed of about 8 knots (9.2 mph), the trip took 10 hours.
We were accompanied by Anne Marie, the refuge manager, and Rich, local birder extraordinaire. (The refuge has a pamphlet that lists all the bird species of Kodiak, whether they breed here, how likely they are to be seen at different times of year. Rich wrote the pamphlet.) I spent a lot of time with Rich and Dan on the flying bridge during the trip out, watching the water. We saw many marine birds and mammals: from flocks of tiny Red-necked Phalaropes to the stocky, penguinish Common Murres; Fin Whales, Dall's Porpoises (see below) and Sea Otters.
Shuyak is 65 square miles in area -- a little larger than the city of Minneapolis. The population in 2000 (according to Wikipedia and the US census) was four people. We didn't see any of them. Most of the island is a state park, so there are some lovely trails and public-use cabins. We stayed in one of the cabins (Eagle's Nest) and Scott put a second one (Salmon Cove) to probably its first-ever use as a goose surgery.
Next you might be wondering . . . Canada Geese? They went all this way for Canada Geese? If they're looking, we have some here at the local golf course! But no: these are special and particular geese. They probably descend from individuals brought at some expense and effort from Vancouver Island to Shuyak by ADF&G in the 1980's, intended to produce a breeding population for the purposes of hunting. They belong to a subspecies of your garden variety goose: a little larger, slightly different in color, and more secretive -- as we would woefully experience firsthand.
Since the introduction of these Vancouver Canada Geese to Shuyak, no one has monitored them, so information is sparse: we don't know how many there are or where they spend the winter. Our mission was to find some, capture them, implant satellite transmitters, and let them go again. We had ten days and were trying for ten geese. Seems reasonable.
The way to catch a goose during breeding season is to find a nest, set a trap, and wait for a female to come back and sit on it. To find a nest, gather several people and have everyone walk around what looks like good nesting habitat. Eventually, someone will walk near enough to a nest that the female sitting on it will spook and fly off. Then you can all look around the area she flew from until you find it. Or else maybe you'll spot the male coming or going, and be able to locate it that way.
Here is what we learned about nesting habitat.
Shuyak is absolutely beautiful. Most of it is forests of moss-draped Sitka spruce, the ground covered in a thick cushion of moss. As you're walking along, it occurs to you that your feet may be somewhere no other person's have been -- not in decades, anyway.
There are beaver ponds and lakes, streams and lagoons. The beaches are rocky with a grassy band bordering the woods. There are little headlands overlooking the water and sometimes-islands (depending on the tide) covered with clumps of grass.
We found nests in nearly all these areas. Vancouver Canada Geese on Shuyak are remarkably versatile. They nest in grass; they nest in moss. They nest on islands and on headlands. We thought they always nested near water until we found a nest way back in the woods. They've even been known to nest in trees, although we didn't find any tree-nesters.
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| One possible place for a goose nest. Photo credit: Robin |
This flexibility makes it frustratingly difficult to narrow down your search area. Add to it the fact that the females are both sneaky and brave, and might sit silently on a nest six feet away while you walk obliviously past. All in all, the task was more difficult than anyone had expected.
So we spent most of the time tromping gloriously around the woods. In the absence of roads, the quickest way to get from one potential search area to another was usually by boat. We had two inflatables. The orange one had an outboard with a broken component and was cleverly MacGyvered back into usefulness by the ADF&G guys with some rubber tubing, zip ties and a stick. It thereafter required two people to operate: one to steer and the other to work the throttle. The second boat, which Scott nicknamed the Gray Sea Slug, was smaller than the orange one and leaked both water and air. So it was very exciting, and with spunk and perseverance we got along quite well.
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| Mike and Jason operating the stick drive |
When we found a nest, we'd set up a bow-net trap: a spring-loaded metal clamshell frame enclosing a net. Then we'd leave. The next day we'd come back and very quietly approach to within maybe a hundred meters of the nest. Using a remote control we'd trigger a little motor, releasing the movable half of the clamshell and (hopefully) draping the net over the goose sitting on the nest. This could go wrong in a variety of ways: the goose wasn't there, or she wiggled away before she could be extracted and placed in a carrier, or the electronics didn't work.
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| Jason and Dan setting up a trap. Photo credit: Robin |
But sometimes -- six times in all -- we successfully captured a goose. These lucky females were gently extracted from the nets, placed in dog carriers and brought by inflatable to Scott's surgery cabin. There they were weighed, measured, banded, and anesthetized. Then Scott performed the surgery: he made an incision in the abdomen, inserted the transmitter, and sewed them back up again. We gave them time to recover from the anesthesia and then released them. In all, each bird was captive for about three hours. They all flew heartily away when freed from their kennels. In many cases their mates met them midair, honking.
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| Goose release. Look closely and you can see the antenna sticking up out of her back. |
Before we'd caught any birds, Scott mentioned that he'd need an assistant. He does all of the actual cutting and stitching and so forth, of course, but it's helpful to have a second pair of hands to unwrap tools, tweak the anesthesia levels, manually breathe for the bird if she stops doing it herself, and take notes. He and Robin asked if I'd like to do it, and in the spirit of being in Alaska and trying anything, I said yes. I had a little trepidation to begin with, but once we got going I felt strangely calm and actually enjoyed the process. It's very precise and orderly, and Scott is confident and competent. I think it sort of demystified blood and guts for me, demonstrating that it's possible to disrupt the order of the body for a little while and not have disastrous results. The eighth-grade conscientious objector to worm dissections wouldn't recognize herself.
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| Goose surgery. Photo credit: Robin |
On the appointed day and time, the Ursa arrived again to pick us up. We were all pretty exhausted -- hiking around the woods all day gets tiring eventually, especially if it's cold and rainy, which sometimes it was. Even so, I was sad to leave. It's really lovely being out there with no other humans around, in the beautiful soft and quiet forest.
The boat ride back was, as they say, a little nautical. I spent a good portion of it sitting at the table in the galley, feeling a bit green. There were certainly interesting birds and mammals, but I either missed a lot of them or was too queasy to commit them to memory. But at the end, just as we came into the harbor channel, we encountered the first and only orcas I have ever seen! Here they are:
And then we were back on land, returned to town. Further stories for another time.
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