190 



Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 



Vol. 27, Art. 2 



and 1949 Yeatter (1950:529) compared 

 the effect of temperature on paired lots of 

 pheasant and quail egjjs during a 7-day 

 preincubation period and stated "that the 

 hatchahilit>- of pheasant eggs was reduced 

 h\ heat exposures, the reduction increas- 

 ing with the higher temperatures." It 

 was concluded that this vulnerability of 

 pheasant eggs to high air temperatures 

 constituted an important barrier to the 

 southern distribution of pheasants, and it 

 was suggested that pheasants in the south- 

 ern Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain 

 regions might be more tolerant of higher 

 temperatures. Recent experiments by 

 Yeatter lend strong support for this sur- 

 mise (Yeatter unpublished MS). 



At the present time, the Illinois De- 

 partment of Conservation, the Illinois 

 Natural History Survey, and the U. S. 

 Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife 

 are co-operating in a comprehensive and 

 intensive investigation of the ring-necked 

 pheasant. This research is being carried 

 on by Dr. William R. Hanson, Dr. Fred- 

 erick Greeley, Jack A. Ellis, and Ronald 

 F. Labisky and involves study of range- 

 limiting factors, the biology of pheasants 

 within the established range, and experi- 

 ments with the establishment of self- 

 maintaining populations outside the ex- 

 isting range. 



The Canada Goose. — Canada geese 

 wintering on the islands and bars in the 

 Mississippi River from Chester, Illinois, 

 southward to Cairo must have found the 

 fight for survival during the early part 

 of the twentieth century severe indeed. 

 The conservationists who, with the ob- 

 jective of providing for pole-and-line fish- 

 ing, arranged for the purchase of Horse- 

 shoe Lake, an ancient oxbow of the Mis- 

 sissippi River in Alexander County, by 

 the Illinois Department of Conservation 

 in 1927 were unaware of the part they 

 would play in protecting this goose popu- 

 lation and setting the stage for its future 

 growth. About 1,900 Canada geese win- 

 tered at Horseshoe Lake, now famous as 

 the Horseshoe Lake Game Refuge, dur- 

 ing the first vear. During the winter of 

 1957-58, about 225,000 Canada geese 

 wintered in southern Illinois; these geese 

 constitute a resource which has been esti- 

 mated to contribute about $1,500,000 an- 

 nuallv to the economv of southern Illinois. 



The refuge was soon surrounded by j 

 commercial shooting clubs, and a problem 

 which attracted national interest was 

 created. Leopold (1931:206) wrote: 

 "The question of whether public refuges 

 should be surrounded by public shooting 

 grounds is frequently debated. Horse- 

 shoe Lake in Alexander County, Illinois, 

 is a good place to study the question." 

 Nevertheless, it was not until 1939, when 

 about 40,000 (the same number estimated 

 to have been killed in southern Illinois in 

 1957) geese were wintering at the refuge, 

 that the annual kill and the need for 

 knowledge on which to base intelligent 

 control became alarming enough to at- 

 tract researchers. 



In 1940 Arthur S. Hawkins initiated 

 the Illinois Natural History Survey's 

 long-time research program on Canada 

 geese (Hanson & Smith 1950:70), and 

 in 1941 geese were banded in the area 

 for the first time by Hawkins and John 

 M. Anderson. The initial effort was 

 necessarily directed toward the develop- 

 ment of efficient trapping and handling 

 methods (Hanson 1949rt), and colored 

 bands were tested on geese ( Balham j^ 

 Elder 1953) for the first time. 



The massing of so large a portion of 

 the Canada geese of the flyway at Horse- 

 shoe Lake created a unique opportunity 

 for population research. Practical meth- 

 ods for aging geese were worked out for 

 the first time (Elder 1946; Hanson 

 \9-\-9b, 1953a), and these methods, which 

 were used for measuring the composition 

 of the population, formed the basis for 

 all subsequent investigations. Elder's 

 (1946:94-8) analysis of the weight of 

 Canada geese by sex and age constituted 

 the first analysis of its kind for geese. 

 Hanson (1949/v) developed techniques 

 for placing Canada geese in three age 

 categories (juvenile, yearling, and adult), 

 thus making possible a considerable ad- 

 \ancement in the understanding of popu- 

 lation mechanics in these birds. 



A definitive investigation of the biol- 

 ogy of the Canada goose constitutes the 

 long-range objective of the research on 

 this species. Early findings were reported 

 in a 144-page article (Hanson & Smith 

 1950). In this article the four flyway 

 populations of Canada geese breeding in 

 the general area of Hudson Bav were 



