resetting the migration<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhile much of Arkansas was also hammered by the storm, the snow line cut through the state on a northwest to southeast line. Presently, snow geese are concentrated primarily in the southern half of the state, especially in the Grand Prairie region. This means the typical winter hotspots are holding excellent numbers of birds, while many also continued southward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are good numbers of birds in this area, but I think we are very near the snow line,\u201d reports guide Jeremy Ullman. \u201cThere is a lot of hunting pressure and we\u2019re working with adult birds, but we\u2019re doing pretty good, with 99 and 61 birds the past two days respectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further north, where only two weeks ago snow geese were staging in impressive numbers, current conditions are akin to the Arctic. Reports indicate millions of snow geese that were concentrated in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, as well as their tributaries, pushed south when the going got too rough.<\/p>\n
While the long-term weather forecast could change, a general warming trend is likely throughout the middle part of the country over the next 10 days. This includes warm conditions for much of the South, and temperatures well-above freezing extending hundreds of miles to the north, all the way to the Great Lakes and Dakotas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are still a handful of wintering snows around,\u201d says Tony Vandemore, of Habitat Flats in Missouri. \u201cNot many; maybe10,000 or so. From what I\u2019ve heard, the snows went a long way south this go around, but it won\u2019t be long!\u201d<\/p>\n
This is just the sort of scenario antsy adult snow geese are notorious for taking advantage of as they quickly fill up primary staging areas such as Illinois and Missouri, while juvenile snow geese hugging the Gulf Coast jump into Arkansas rice country to take their place.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, I\u2019m keeping my operation shutdown due to conditions,\u201d says Matt Albers of Willow Creek Waterfowl in southern Illinois. \u201cWe have a few small holes open on the lake, with very few birds that managed to stick around and ride out the snowstorm. We expect to see good numbers show up pretty quickly beginning this weekend as temperatures warm up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leading edge adults are notorious for probing further north quickly, dragging some juveniles along with them when young birds are abundant, and by all measures last year\u2019s hatch was tremendous. This is a good thing for hunters who want to get out and give those early flocks a whirl. Savvy snow goose hunters know that with the incoming weather, the expectation for big changes is imminent over the next two weeks.<\/p>\n
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Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
February 04, 2026 \u2022
2
min read
Phil Kahnke The 2026 Light Goose Conservation Order…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-457586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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