Q&A with Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge visitor services manager Josie Finley
By Terry Otto, Columbian
freelance outdoors writer
Published: November 30, 2024, 6:04am
Share:
Smallish cackling Canada geese gather at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is within the Northwest Permit Zone for geese, which is managed very carefully so hunters do not accidently kill any dusky Canada geese, which are closed to harvest. (Photos by Terry Otto for The Columbian)
Question-and-answer with Josie Finley, visitor services manager for the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Complex:
Columbian: Have there been any recent changes to the hunt structure, or any new blinds, or anything new in the hunt program? Are any changes planned for the future?
Finley: Our hunt program has not had any changes recently and I think that is one thing that is attractive to the community. It is something they can rely on working mostly the same year in-year out.
We were down one input water pump that fills wetlands early season, which complicated things. However, all blinds are fully huntable now with good water levels. We will be doing an upgrade to that pump in the fall of 2026.
Future changes could be budget based, which is hard to predict this early. We must always have contingency plans if budgets will not allow us to staff the check station with a seasonal operator. That could result in shorter hunt hours as current full time staff would have to absorb those shifts.
We are also working with the hunting community and other users to understand the impacts of a fee increase in all of our programs. It would not be substantial but something to help us pay for the increasing cost of supplies and maintenance of public use areas. That change takes awhile as we have to submit a proposal and have it go through many approval steps both internal and external. We are working to ensure that such a change would not create more barriers to access public lands and have gotten a lot of good feedback from the community around this.
Columbian: Overall, when is the best time of the year to hunt there? Is there a time of year that is best, or is it all a matter of weather?
Finley: The hunt season typically starts with good hunting and then declines quickly until November with the arrival of northern birds ushered in by winter storms. So it is both a timing and weather event when hunting improves.
Columbian: Do the hunters there take many geese? And, do any hunters take the larger Canada geese? I have covered hunts out there and most hunters avoid the big ones so they don’t accidentally shoot a dusky. They just take the smaller cackling Canada geese that are easy to identify.
Finley: It really depends on the hunter. Like any skill it takes time to get the identification to a point you can do it so fast and in varied lighting and weather. Often new hunters start out focused on those smaller geese and with time and often mentorship from others they become very skilled in goose id. Many hunters spend a lot of time birding here and in other natural areas to practice between hunting trips.
People often don’t realize that hunters are also birders, naturalists, and overall nature nerds just like the rest of us using refuge lands.
You can see by the numbers that cackling geese are the majority of the harvest here. That is also because of their abundance.
Last year’s numbers
Cackling: 257
Taverner’s: 12
Lesser: 1
Western: 5
Dusky: 1
Vancouver: 6
Total CAGOs: 282
Other Geese:
White Fronted: 5
Total Geese: 287
Columbian: Have there been any dusky Canada geese checked or taken since they closed it completely?
Finley: Dusky Canada geese do get harvested on occasion, mostly by accident. Luckily this is in low numbers. We have a quota that is set each year from 5-15 depending on the population, as tracked by WDFW. Once that is reached, the goose season is shut down here at the refuge. We have been fortunate to not have to do that in a while. Almost always, violations we see through this program are honest mistakes.
Note: The dusky goose is a subspecies of the Canada goose. They are ESA listed, and there is no open season for taking them. The Ridgefield NWR is within the Northwest Goose Permit Zone, and hunters that want to hunt geese there must first pass a test on goose identification, and follow special rules that minimize the risk of hunters accidentally killing duskies.
