In the spring of 2024, at the advice of its staff advisory board, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (TPWC) made a dramatic announcement: It would drop the Light Goose Conservation Order. Said Owen Fitzsimmons, the Commission’s Webless Migratory Game Bird Program Leader: “Due to the low numbers of wintering light geese that remain in Texas and the rapidly declining population, staff feel strongly that the conservation order is an optional management tool that is no longer necessary.”
In 1999, due to swelling populations of light geese (snow geese, including blues; greater snow geese and Ross’s geese), the US Fish and Wildlife Service enacted the conservation order to mitigate the irreversible damage to Arctic habitats where the geese were breeding. The object was to enlist hunters across the US to manage and ultimately reduce the population of light geese. In Texas this meant an open season during the late winter that was divided into east and west zones. Hunters were allowed to use electronic calls and unplugged shotguns holding more than three shotshells, and shooting time was extended to 30 minutes after sunset. Originally there were no bag or possession limits (although these would be enacted in later years). Even with the conservation order, the total continental population of light geese would peak at 19 million in 2007 before declining to just 3 million in 2023. “That decline is not due to the conservation order or regular-season harvest,” Fitzsimmons said. “Climate change is impacting seasonal timing in the Arctic, creating a mismatch of resources during the very limited summer breeding window, and the young birds are simply not surviving to adulthood.”
The TPWC also reports that habitat changes—with rice crops and coastal marshes having declined and urban sprawl having increased—have reduced the number of light geese wintering in Texas.
Goose hunters across Texas will now enjoy a full 107-day regular season, which is the maximum allowed under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, with a daily limit of five light geese and 15 in possession.
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