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Tagging Brent Geese
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Where do the geese go?

 

Understanding patterns of urban habitat use in overwintering light-bellied Brent geese in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown

Ireland is vitally important for the light-bellied Brent goose Branta bernicla hrota coming from East Canada. Ireland hosts 95% of the flyway population every winter and provides essential feeding and roosting habitats at various sites across the country including Dun Laoghaire Rathdown.  The public have played a key role in providing information and data for monitoring the geese and this shows the deep interest reflected in the community efforts and also the need for protection of this wonderful species.

Brent geese feed heavily on Seagrass ( Zostera spp.) however with diminishing resources and pressures on feeding areas, they are now increasingly using improved grasslands such as parks and pitches, adapting to the urban habitat of Dublin. Today internationally important numbers are now feeding in many non-designated sites adjacent to their more typical inter-tidal protected feeding areas.

Brent Geese Tagging Project

This is our second year to tag brent geese in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. We have had a successful round of tagging just before christmas in 2019 and will continue in Jan 2020. DLR's Biodiversity officer would like to thank the members of the public who assisted her in Kilbogget Park with some wonderful but stubborn brent geese on a very wet and cold December day !!

Dun Loaghaire Rathdown County Council along with Dublin City Council have joined a Fingal County Council led project that aims to tag Brent geese in order to understand their movements within the Dublin area, including their use of non-designated sites.  Students and staff from the University of Exeter have been working hard on this project since 2018 on our behalf and have put in a massive effort to get the geese tagged sot that we can gain insight into where the geese feed and where they roost.

We would like to thank the public for the helping us to identify inland areas of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown where Brent geese have been seen or noted.  

You can send the information on sightings of brent geese in inland areas of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown to the Biodiversity Officer at annemurray@dlrcoco.ie

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