In Arctic climates, habitat recovers slowly, if at all. Studies suggest that degraded coastal salt marsh habitats will take decades to recover.

Worse yet, white geese beginning to move inland in search of food are now threatening freshwater marshes. This could have a serious, long-term impact on the entire coastal ecosystem, including other wildlife species such as Canada geese.

Snow geese are not only threatening the Arctic ecosystem, but a number of their populations are showing signs of stress. Due to intense competition for food, thousands of goslings starve to death or die from disease every year.

Another consequence of increasing white goose populations is damage to agricultural crops. American croplands are vulnerable to fall-migrating snow geese, and during both winter and spring migrations, winter wheat gets especially damaged.

Wildlife agencies have implemented several strategies, including increased subsistence harvest by Canadian Inuit, longer spring seasons in the U.S. and allowing electronic calls.

TRACKING SNOWS
Colorado attracts anywhere between 120,000 and 200,000 white geese on their winter migration. Some merely pass through the state on their way to Texas and Mexico, but others spend the winter before heading back north to their Arctic nesting grounds.

The first Ross's and snows usually arrive in the third week of October, depending on the weather up north.

Ed Gorman, a Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist, says he starts seeing white geese as soon as the first big cold front hits Montana and the Dakotas.

The southbound flocks don't linger long in northeast Colorado. But the first week of the white-goose season in early November could see up to 50,000 birds on Jumbo Reservoir and provide good shooting in surrounding farm fields and state wildlife areas.

A few thousand spend the winter on Jumbo and ponds along the Platte River corridor, so there's always some goose hunting to be had there all season long.

Some southbound geese -- 2,000 to 3,000 -- also stop at Bonny Reservoir in east central Colorado, where they mingle with migrating Canadas. There's good pass-shooting at Bonny and crop fields to hunt over decoys in the adjoining South Republican State Wildlife Area. But the largest concentrations of white geese prefer to go on to southeast Colorado, where many stay for the winter.

Snow goose hunting is like buying a house: location, location, location. Good rules of thumb: Green winter wheat draws more geese than corn stubble, and milo sometimes trumps them both.

In winter, therefore, southeastern Colorado provides the best white goose shooting. In the later half of February, still more geese pile in from New Mexico when the flocks begin their northbound migration.

March is a peak month, not only in the southeast quadrant but up around Jumbo. The northbound flocks linger for several weeks before beginning their long flight back to the Arctic.

AMMO, TACTICS, DECOYS
Ross's geese are little bigger than a large duck. Snow geese are still a lot smaller than a Greater Canada. Both are tough birds, however, and require some heavy shot to bring them down.

I've shot light geese with a 12-gauge, and most of my hunting partners still do. But my favorite is a full-choke 10 loaded with No. 2 Hevishot or BBB steel.

Good calling helps, but I'm not sold on electronic calls. Most are taped from flocks of 5,000 geese or more. Coming from a spread of only 400 rags, they sound phony. I've had snows come into a silent spread and maintain that motion is better than sound.