Nene Geese

[chicksbestfriend]

gd,
yes, I am aware that the domestic geese is often larger than the ones in the wild, and you are correct for the probable cause of better nutrition and medicine. As far as the conversation on the Hawaiian Nene goose, I have learned that in the later part of the 17th century, there were thousands of of Nene's and the the numbers began to dwindle thoughout modern times due to introduced predators and the sport of hunting, which brought down the numbers to under a 100 in the middle of the 19th century. The nature reserve in England is credited for its return from the brink of extinction and this rare goose has once again been re established in the Hawaiian chain. I do not argue the fact that the conservationsist who worked at the re establishment of this rare breed didnt use some type of "inbreeding" due to the low population count, they probably did, and I do not argue the fact that not all of the species were returned upon successful breeding as I too believe that "human nature" would be to attain something of such rareity because there are still Hawaiian Nene goose in England located at all of their Waterfowl and wetland trust centres, and one being were the the re establishment of this breed occurred, which is a known fact. You can visit any WWT Centre and the Hawaiian Nene Goose will be listed as a protected and endangered speices. However, my intent with responding to this post, out of shear curiosity was how such a rare breed of goose that is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands could be so readily available in the United States when I live off the Slopes of Haleakala and not far from Piiholo where they were re introduced over the past ten years, and because they are "so protected", it is against the law to touch, fed and capture them without a heavy penalty by the law.



You are aware that domestic geese are often larger than their wild relatives? For the same reason that modern man is larger than the historic 17th and 18th century men, better nutrition and medicine. Also if the breed got down to only 30 in the islands there probably were more non native nenes in private flocks and zoos than there were in the islands. I am not really aware of the steps that went into rebuilding the native flock but I would assume that birds that had been removed(goose) generations ago were welcomed back as "new blood" to restore the limited gene pool but the exporters would not return all of their stock, it is just human nature to retain part of what they had worked so long to preserve. Heck there exist enough differences between different strains of Canada geese allowed to mix as they will in North America that many biologists now consider them to be different breeds. Evolution formed the birds called Nenes and evolution does not stop just because we think it should.~gd

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Quote:
BB,
I do believe and question the inbreeding of the Nene, how else would they have been able to re establish them from less than 100 to less than 1000 when they are known to only lay 1-5 eggs each during the winter months, with the average number per gosling hatching is 3? To bring those numbers back up to where they are today, over 800 from the mid 1900's to the early 2000, there had to of been some type of inbreeding for the re introduction to attain that many, my opinion. The geese that were pictured, do have a striking resemblance of the Hawaiian Nene, they do look like them in general, but would be quite interesting to hear where the origination came from, because if they are "true" Hawaiian Nene's, that shouldnt be hard to do or trace.

 

[JROOSTER]

Ok I really dont want to touch this thread with a ten foot pole... but let me just say. I looked long and hard at the pics posted, then I went online and looked at all the pics I could of Nene geese. I think the pics posted here look like all the other pics of Nene geese I could find. Maybe the OP could post more pics for us. If I am understanding the jist of whats being said here is that the op pics are not Nene geese.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
BB,
I do believe and question the inbreeding of the Nene, how else would they have been able to re establish them from less than 100 to less than 1000 when they are known to only lay 1-5 eggs each during the winter months, with the average number per gosling hatching is 3? To bring those numbers back up to where they are today, over 800 from the mid 1900's to the early 2000, there had to of been some type of inbreeding for the re introduction to attain that many, my opinion. The geese that were pictured, do have a striking resemblance of the Hawaiian Nene, they do look like them in general, but would be quite interesting to hear where the origination came from, because if they are "true" Hawaiian Nene's, that shouldnt be hard to do or trace.

Breeders have 'tricks' they can use to increase the number of eggs laid (removing the eggs and controling the lighting to extend the breeding period) AI to increase the fertility of the eggs laid and incubation to increase the percentage of hatch.
Even left in the wild with a annual reproduction rate of 1.5 per bird per year any action to reduce the death rate is going to produce a rather larger number of productive reproducers over a 50 year period. If you consider how fast the new colors of geese have spread through the mainland over the last 20 years you would have no reason to be surprised at the nene number increase. Was there some inbreeding? I would say so, flock birds have a tendency to increase by inbreeding and it is fairly common in the wild to the point that a trained biologist can usually tell which flyway a Canada was harvested from by looking for minor differences.
I don't know why you are so hung up on "true" Hawaiian nenes. Are Shetland geese only found in Shetland? Are West of England geese a different breed when they are hatched in the USA?

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Quote:
BB,
I do believe and question the inbreeding of the Nene, how else would they have been able to re establish them from less than 100 to less than 1000 when they are known to only lay 1-5 eggs each during the winter months, with the average number per gosling hatching is 3? To bring those numbers back up to where they are today, over 800 from the mid 1900's to the early 2000, there had to of been some type of inbreeding for the re introduction to attain that many, my opinion. The geese that were pictured, do have a striking resemblance of the Hawaiian Nene, they do look like them in general, but would be quite interesting to hear where the origination came from, because if they are "true" Hawaiian Nene's, that shouldnt be hard to do or trace.

Breeders have 'tricks' they can use to increase the number of eggs laid (removing the eggs and controling the lighting to extend the breeding period) AI to increase the fertility of the eggs laid and incubation to increase the percentage of hatch.
Even left in the wild with a annual reproduction rate of 1.5 per bird per year any action to reduce the death rate is going to produce a rather larger number of productive reproducers over a 50 year period. If you consider how fast the new colors of geese have spread through the mainland over the last 20 years you would have no reason to be surprised at the nene number increase. Was there some inbreeding? I would say so, flock birds have a tendency to increase by inbreeding and it is fairly common in the wild to the point that a trained biologist can usually tell which flyway a Canada was harvested from by looking for minor differences.
I don't know why you are so hung up on "true" Hawaiian nenes. Are Shetland geese only found in Shetland? Are West of England geese a different breed when they are hatched in the USA?

gd,
I am not arguing any facts, just simply making statements and I do have belief in the general facts that you have stated in this post. I am not hung up on the "true" Hawaiian Nene, and I am sorry if the way that I have word things have lead you or anyone else in these threads to think differently. Its supposedly, that the Nene, the Hawaiian Nene, the Hawaiian goose, whatever you want to refer it to, is only indingent to Hawaii. Thats why I say, "true" Hawaiian goose, because of the history and knowledge surrounding that particular protected speices. The Shetland and West of England geese that you mentioned are not "protected and endangered species" by the federal government, and they have also been approved for export from the UK to the mainland, unlike the Nene. I do agree that there is no difference in the genetics of those two speices, regardless of where they are hatched. The endangered species act states that any speices listed under "endangered" prohibits any acts of "taking"; Except as permitted by rules adopted by the department, thus far, it shall be unlawful for any person to take, possess, transport, transplant, export, process, sell, offer for sale, or ship any speices of aquatic life, wildlife, or land plants deemed by the department to be in need of conservation pursuant to this section. Any conduct or attempt of conduct is prohibited, which was established in the ESA guidlines in 1975. With knowledge of that, it has led my curiosity to wonder HOW so many of the Nene goose could be available for "taking" when it is known that the Nene is not a migratory bird, they are monogamous, and like you stated, it would take a trained or professional breeder to increase the numbers. If the Nene is a protected and endangered speice in Hawaii, how come they appear to be so prevalent?

 

[The goose girl]

Wild Nene geese exist only in Hawaii. In order to preserve the wild population, there must be strict rules there regarding tampering.

In any other place in the world, we don't have any wild Nene geese to protect, so we can breed them in captivity as crazy as we want. Only the wild population is the endangered species.

I seriously doubt that the captive Nenes are easily crossbred since they are winter breeders.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Quote:
THANK YOU GOOSE GIRL!! OMG!! I never thought to consider that there MAY be a domestic Nene in the rest of the world, (or the real world) you totally made sense to me with that one. I think I have been living too much of a sheltered life here in the islands, islolated from things that are happening or do happen in the mainland. I have not ever heard of a domestic Nene. In all the research and studying of this fowl, I have not come across anything suggesting a domestic breed of this speices. Wow, will look into resting my case.

Thank you for enlightening me, I will definitely do some researching of the domestic speices. I can now relate to how the Hawaiians felt with the overthrow of their kingdom, I was starting to feel that something I had a personal attachment to and respected for, (the Nene) was being robbed from the culture of these islands. Wow, good lesson learned today, thanks again for your post!

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
THANK YOU GOOSE GIRL!! OMG!! I never thought to consider that there MAY be a domestic Nene in the rest of the world, (or the real world) you totally made sense to me with that one. I think I have been living too much of a sheltered life here in the islands, islolated from things that are happening or do happen in the mainland. I have not ever heard of a domestic Nene. In all the research and studying of this fowl, I have not come across anything suggesting a domestic breed of this speices. Wow, will look into resting my case.

Thank you for enlightening me, I will definitely do some researching of the domestic speices. I can now relate to how the Hawaiians felt with the overthrow of their kingdom, I was starting to feel that something I had a personal attachment to and respected for, (the Nene) was being robbed from the culture of these islands. Wow, good lesson learned today, thanks again for your post!

Rather than robbing the Nene from your islands, the rest of the world pitched in and saved the endangered geese from extinction! According to Wikipedia (Which I strongly recommend you read the entry for Nene geese) there were about 800 wild Nene in the islands but 1000 captive Nene in the rest of the world (2004). It has been a subject of debate if these captive birds should be domesticated or not. If their eventual fate is to be returned to the wild they should be kept as wild as possible. I do not know the terms of the permits for the completely legal exports from the islands that allowed these captive populations, but it is a fact that some have been domesticated and are no longer under direct government control. Once the genie is out of the bottle you cannot put it back. Private owners of rare waterfowl will not return the birds to direct government control but will go underground and there are not enough cops in the world to track down the birds.
BTW I know how you feel, I once owned land that contained two populations (of only 23 known) of wild Venus flytraps. I was not allowed to do anything to disturb these plants and it was even illegal for me to disclose their location to anyone. BUT at the same time I could walk into any good garden center and buy identical plants which were clones taken many years ago when the wild populations were not endangered. The best genetic testing now available could not tell the garden center plants from the plants in my endangered locations because they were true clones. I was often tempted to buy a few and plant them back in the wild just to see what the experts would do/say when they were pointed out to them in a completely new location. Endangered priceless plants when wild, $1.50 each when bought at the garden center…..Makes me wonder….~gd

 

[chicksbestfriend]

g I so understand what you are saying, and will read what you have recommended. My mind is still trying to recover, like the old saying goes, "Sometimes the truth hurts!" Ouch. I so understand what you are saying, and yet, doesnt help the fact that I am feeling a sense of betrayal. I now understand what gd was referring to about the color variations and sizes of particular breeds changing through time................ maybe I should take off my rose colored glasses and expand my horizons so I am not so ignorant of whats going on in the world around me. Your explanation of the Venus fly traps gave me a clearer understanding. My son in law works for the department of land and natural resources and when he goes up into the reserves, he has taken photos of the endangered fauna that exists in the reserves and I am in complete awe at every opportunity I have to view these rare species in the photos. Like you with the VFT's, he is not allowed to disclose their locations due to their protected status. For what ever led my ignorance of the subject matter, I thought because the Nene were protected and endangered, and only known to exist in Hawaii, I did not even begin to think that their would be any possibility that a domestic breed of Nene's would exist because they were endangered.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
What you have got Me wondering is this: The birds were found on 3 different islands. It would follow that if they were so isolated there should have been minor differences between the 3 different populations. Some where I have read of birds that were brought back (and I am not saying they were nenes) where different populations were used in the breeding of the birds for reintroduction. All populations were very inbred but by using individuals from the different populations and modern breeding methods the reintroduced birds had well mixed genitics and of course the minor differences were lost as a small price to pay to bring the birds back. Would you know if it was the Nene goose that I read about? Are the geese different on the three Islands or are they uniform?
Oh yes I forgot to mention that my story about the Venus Flytraps has a bad ending. The state Department of Transporation took my land with the secret locations and ran a 4 lane highway right over them. Progress when one part of government is free to ignore other parts of government.