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  "path": "/environment/2026/06/08/utah-goose-catching-good-for-afternoon-project/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-08T21:20:34.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.deseret.com",
  "tags": [
    "Poll: How far will Utahns go to conserve water?",
    "USGS Bird Banding database",
    "Out of the ashes, the Grand Canyon’s North Rim reopens"
  ],
  "textContent": "There’s a monthlong period in early summer when Canada geese are rendered flightless. As their feathers drop in preparation for a new coat, geese eventually get to a point of being earthbound.\n\nSince the 1960s, Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources has viewed summer molting as a tremendous opportunity to catch the birds and attach tags to them.\n\nAt the Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area in Hooper, Weber County, on Friday morning, a handful of employees from the Department of Natural Resources continued that 61-year tradition.\n\nClad in waterproof waders and lightweight long sleeves, DNR employees (and some of their children) divvied themselves across nine airboats to catch geese.\n\nRich Hansen, the Division of Wildlife Resources wetland manager and waterfowl banding coordinator, told press that goose banding is “the reward” for all of the work his team does through the year. “Everybody looks forward to goose banding. It’s nice to be able to get all our families out as well.”\n\nPoll: How far will Utahns go to conserve water?\n\n### Why does Utah put bands on its geese?\n\nFrom 1965 to 2004, Utah caught and banded 65,000 geese. During Hansen’s tenure as waterfowl banding coordinator, which began in 2004, his team has caught the same amount, putting the state at a banding total of 130,000.\n\n“All of this banding effort is important because we’re in charge of managing wildlife for the public. By putting these bands on, we’re monitoring survival rates and mortality rates, and we’re able to manage the populations,” he said.\n\nEach stainless steel band has a unique number. That number is recorded, along with the age and sex of the bird, into the USGS Bird Banding database. If a hunter shoots a bird with a band, he can go to that website and enter in the new information of where and when they shot it.\n\nIn a conversation with the Deseret News, Hansen said Utah bands more geese than anyone west of the Rockies.\n\n“If we have 500 recaptures, probably 499 were banded in Utah. We get an occasional Idaho or Montana bird,” he said.\n\nThe Great Salt Lake, along with a strong division of wildlife management, puts the state in a good place for goose capture and banding.\n\nAfter a DNR employee puts a band around a goose’s ankle, the bird is put in a pen with the other banded geese. “We do like to keep them all gathered together and release them together so they can get back into their family groups and just be safe,” Hansen said.\n\nHansen loves “every minute of every hour” of banding day. “I mean, I get paid to drive an airboat. Who gets to do that?” he said.\n\nOut of the ashes, the Grand Canyon’s North Rim reopens\n\n### How does one capture and band a goose?\n\nAcross the glassy surface of the Great Salt Lake marsh, nine airboats zipped around in search of geese on Friday.\n\nThe scientific method of goose capture goes as follows. In front of the airboat captain, two employees (or children of employees) stretch out on their stomachs, sometimes getting sprayed by other boats.\n\nThe captain positions the boat behind a goose. The goose then dips under the surface to escape, and the goose-capturers throw their arms into the water. Depending on either the goose’s inability to vanish or the goose-capturer’s skill at finding it in the murk, the bird is pulled out of the water.\n\nAfter flapping its useless wings at the goose-capturer, it goes straight into a plastic crate.\n\nSurprisingly, geese are very calm in airboat captivity. They sit there as the process continues, staring unblinkingly at the boat’s passengers.\n\nOnce a majority of the flock sits aboard the airboats, they’re brought to shore. One by one, they’re handed to sun-reddened employees, who flip the birds upside-down, check their genders, call out a number and a sex, then clamp on a stainless steel anklet.\n\nThe birds are then taken away and plopped into a wire containment.\n\nThe process is quick. Once the final bird is banded, one of Hansen’s children opens the cage’s wire gate, and the birds waddle back to the lake.\n\nOnce in a while, a confused goose tries to stay in the makeshift cage. A DNR employee picks it up and gently tosses it back to the water.",
  "title": "Goose catching has become a well-tuned science in Utah"
}