On the World Bird Migratory Day this year an international expedition organized by AEWA Secretariat, BSPB/BirdLife Bulgaria and ACBK will try to get closer to understanding the numbers and population status of tow of the rarest goose species – the Lesser White-fronted Goose and the Red-breasted Goose.

An international team which includes experts from BSPB and the ACBK and the Finnish Lesser White-fronted Goose Working Group embark on a 20-day mission across the North of Kazakhstan to survey key staging areas for the migratory geese in the country. Split into 3 field teams they will survey the numerous lakes and wetlands that shelter the migratory geese that cross Kazakhstan twice a year on their way from and back to the breeding grounds in Arctic Russia. The international mission co-funded by the AEWA and the EU Life for Safe Flight project will try to repeat the success of the 2016 field mission that came with some robust data and reliable population data.

In November 2019 the AEWA International Working Group on Red-breasted Goose adopted a flyway monitoring protocol that steps on the basis created by the 2016 survey methodology and as part of the LFIE for Safe Flight project we try to make it a regular event and to produce comparable data from autumn monitoring in Kazakhstan. This is vital in view of the fact that the Climate Change demonstrated by the mild and warm winters that occur nowadays in the traditional wintering grounds of the Red-breasted Goose leads to short stopping and delays in the migration of the species and it poses difficulties in appropriate assessment of the status and trend of the global population of the Red-breasted Goose.

Stay tuned for updates from the field.