Skagit County, WA – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced today in a press release the dates for a scheduled brant goose hunting season, after counts of the birds in Skagit County indicated numbers were at the level needed for a full season.
The year’s brant season in Skagit County will occur on January 7th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 15th 18th, 21st and 22nd, based on the criteria set when the season was adopted by the WDFW commission in April.
Kyle Spragens, WDFW’s waterfowl section manager said “The number of hunting days depends on how many brant are counted during aerial surveys.”
Recent aerial surveys of Padilla, Samish, and Fidalgo bays resulted in counts of more than 6,000 brant, the number needed for a full season.
Last year’s counts resulted in a restricted hunting season in Skagit County, with counts of 4,403 and 5,043 total counted.
WDFW brant hunting regulations have been restrictive since the 1970’s in Skagit County to conserve the limited population of Western High Artic brant that winter in the area.
Spragens said the direct cause of the variable Skagit brant numbers are unknown but may be influenced by increasing numbers of brant wintering in Southwest Alaska, indicating that wintering distribution shifts may be occurring.
Additional information on brant seasons is available in the WDFW’s Migratory Waterfowl and Upland Game Seasons hunting pamphlet at the following link: http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/regulations/
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