Different canada geese lessers? Greater?

[crimedog]

So there are different canada geese, after 25 years of hunting I don't really know the difference. Hunting on the east coast are the canada's lessers or what?

[duckcommander727]

I live in South Carolina we kill mostly Greaters you will know the difference though when you pick a lesser up.

[disco duck]

there are greaters, lessers, cacklers, and i think there is a giant west coast version, i have seen a few lessers on the eastern shore of MD but other than that just greaters

[crimedog]

Thanks

[Carpmaster]

You are going to see the greaters(mostly)

This year I was fortunate to see many of them in my travels but some of the very close subspecies are hard to determine, basically IMHO it should be cacks, lessers, greaters, giants...

[crimedog]

Reading about the different species they have different color shadesand act differently with different social group actions. Me being a perfectionist I want more reality.

[dkhunter8383]

ORIGINAL: duckcommander727

I live in South Carolina we kill mostly Greaters you will know the difference though when you pick a lesser up.

duckcommander is exactly right a lesser will be slightly larger then a big mallard, they are very small geese and a Greaters are a lot bigger

[MinnFinn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Goose

Some information on sub-species. The Canada Giant were thought at one point to beextent in the 1950's, until early 1960's. Then they discovered a number of viable flocks that stay nearly year around on the water kept open by a power plant by Rochester, MN (Mayo Clinic).
There were refugees established to help insure those flocks grew and a great many of those Giants in various parts of the country are as a result of those efforts. See the story here:
http://www.avianweb.com/canadageese.html

So, when we are layingout in a picked field near daybreak with the decoys around calling in the Giants coming into a wind, remember to thank those that made that discovery and acted to get them the habitat and protection to recover. Now we can hunt them once again.