Scientists spent four months tracking by satellite the incredible journey of a goose named Kerry as he migrated 5,000 kilometres from Northern Ireland to the Canadian Arctic. But the project ended last week when scientists followed their instruments across fiords and lakes – to find their valuable subject in an Inuit hunter’s freezer.
“Kerry shot in Canada,” says the latest update on the project’s Web site, which records the migratory trek of six light-bellied Brent geese.
Kerry was part of a migratory tracking project by Britain’s Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the National Geographic Society. When the beeps from Kerry’s transmitter showed he had moved from one island in the Arctic to another and then stopped, the researchers called in Canadian wildlife officers to track the bird. They followed Kerry’s signal to a house on Cornwallis Island and found the bird in an Inuit hunter’s freezer.
“Having a bird shot in Canada wasn’t something we expected,” said James Robinson, a researcher with the British trust. Of the six birds the project tracked, only three are still alive.
The Globe and Mail reports that representatives of the Hurons, Seneca and
