Fran – the goose who knows her road signs!
Scientists aren’t supposed to hope for a particular result from a study. Rather scientists are supposed to objectively develop a testable hypothesis from a question and design a research methodology that will unambiguously support or refute the hypothesis. For example, a reasonable research question might be “Do Canada geese migrate between Missouri and Canada?”, and a half-decent hypothesis from this question might be “Missouri Canada geese are year-round residents”. That’s all well and good, but the day we fitted a GPS collar to Fran the Canada Goose (13 June 2023 at the Fish Hatchery in Forest Park), we were really hoping she would migrate to Canada. Fran is a Canada goose after all, and isn’t that what Canada geese are supposed to do? Flying to Canada would take the locally based Forest Park Living Lab to international glory! Incidentally Fran is a boy, but we didn’t know that until we got our DNA test results back long after we named him! Johnny Cash would approve as he did write the song, A boy named Sue.
Well, it turns out that Fran rather likes life in Forest Park, or rather he likes life in Saint Louis – on both sides of the Mississippi River. When we tagged him, Fran had lost his flight feathers (a normal annual molting event) and was waddling about here and there between the Fish hatchery and Jefferson Lake with his family which included his mate and several goslings. Our group of wildlife health professionals, nationally accredited bird banders, and assorted students snuck up on him, caught him up in a glorified butterfly net, took a blood sample and some measurements, weighed him and fitted his GPS collar before releasing him unscathed. After a few minutes of loud squawking, he was quickly reunited with his family, who collectively resumed their normal evening activities.
Maps of Fran’s movement over the past year
After a couple more weeks of waddling around Forest Park, Fran’s new flight feathers grew in, and he was ready to take to the air once more. YES, we thought; Canada here he comes. However, after a couple of short test flights in Forest Park, presumably to get his now adolescent chicks into flight mode, his first port of call was Fairground Park in North Saint Louis. Bit more waddling, then back to Forest Park…little more waddling…then a trip to the new campus of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, also in the north of the city. After a swim in the picturesque, newly landscaped lake around which one day soon all those geospatial intelligence officers will have their lunch, he made a quick trip to the Gateway Middle School and Kipp Academy sports fields, before a flight to the lake in Hyde Park. He bounced around between these beloved city features for some days before heading east across the river, flapping over Brooklyn (East Saint Louis, not New York City), and landing in Eagle Park Lake by the Canaan Galilee Baptist Church. After a bit more swimming and some more waddling, back to Fairground Park via the sandbank by Mosenthian Island in the middle of the Mississippi River.
Fran pretty much likes anywhere in the Saint Louis region that has a decent sized area of grass (to use for grazing (yep, geese graze like cattle), and as an airstrip for those less than elegant landings), and a bit of standing water, be it the little pond north of the World Wide Technology Raceway in East Saint Louis, or at the Boathouse on the Post Dispatch Lake in Forest Park. As a conscientious feathered, web-footed community member, Fran is careful to obey the road signs of the city, though sticking to the speed limit is a little beyond him since he does need to stay airborne when flying over the city-scape for his explorations.
What about Canada? Who knows, maybe next year. Fran’s GPS collar has a solar panel so hopefully we can follow him for many years. But with Fairground Park, Forest Park, and the rest of the beautiful parks and lakes of Saint Louis, maybe Fran understands that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the border.