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Resident populations of Canada geese (Branta canadensis) are of particular management interest throughout the eastern United States given increased human‐wildlife conflicts due to regional increases in the Atlantic Flyway Resident Population. Within Virginia, USA, growth rates of resident goose populations have been reduced through extended harvest seasons and increased bag limits. Our objective was to investigate spatiotemporal patterns in survival rates and harvest rates of resident geese in Virginia over the past 25 years. We estimated annual survival, recovery, and harvest rates using mark‐recapture data from 1990–2015 for individuals that were banded as resident birds during summer throughout the state. We tested for differences in annual survival probability and harvest rates of resident geese banded and recovered in 3 distinct goose hunt zones: the Atlantic, Southern James Bay, and Western hunt zones, each of which had different hunting regulations. We also tested for differences in survival and harvest rates between individuals banded in rural or urban sampling locations, and between age classes (i.e., after hatch‐year or hatch‐year). In general, survival rates of resident geese over the past 25 years in Virginia are declining. Differences in survival among the 3 goose hunt zones also suggests that current harvest management strategies have reduced survival rates of resident geese. Upon closer examination, we found differences in survival among zones, with resident geese in the Atlantic and Southern James Bay hunt zones showing more negative declines compared to resident geese in the Western zone. Resident geese banded in rural areas had higher survival than urban‐banded geese. We also investigated the effects of sampling effort on survival estimates and found no difference in survival estimates among groups when using 75%, 50%, 25%, or 5% of the data randomly sampled from the full data set, suggesting that banding efforts of resident geese could be reduced and continue to inform adaptive management strategies for these populations throughout Virginia. © 2020 The Wildlife Society. Using 25 years of mark‐recapture data from resident Canada geese in Virginia, on average, survival rates are declining and harvest rates are increasing. These trends indicate that hunting regulations across the state are effective and are aiding in the achievement of established management goals for resident geese in Virginia. We were able to detect observed trends in survival and harvest rates despite using much‐reduced data sets, suggesting the potential to reallocate resources for banding of resident geese to other population reduction methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habitat restoration and enhancement objectives for wintering waterfowl are typically derived by a bioenergetics modeling approach. This approach has been developed as a planning tool to identify the amount of foraging habitat required to meet North American Waterfowl Management Plan population objectives. Our objective was to provide the energetic supply component of the bioenergetics model at an important wintering area for American black ducks Anas rubripes in the Atlantic Flyway, the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We estimated food availability among four main wetland cover types used by overwintering American black ducks: brackish water, freshwater, mudflat, and salt marsh. Mudflat (221 ± 50 kg/ha) and salt marsh (728 ± 175 kg/ha) had the highest amounts of available invertebrate food density, and freshwater (42 ± 9 kg/ha) had the highest amounts of available seed biomass. Our results suggest that seed density found in freshwater wetlands on the Eastern Shore of Virginia is considerably lower than densities found in inland freshwater cover types used by dabbling ducks. We also found that levels of invertebrate density found in Virginia mudflat and salt marsh are considerably lower than levels on Long Island, New York, and in southern New Jersey. Lower levels of food density compared with both more inland and northern wintering areas suggest that American black ducks wintering in Virginia are more likely to be limited by forage availability than American black ducks and other dabbling ducks wintering both inland and in the northern portion of the wintering range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]