BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Greylag Goose

GREYLAG GOOSE
Anser anser

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: not listed (introduced population);
amber (localised NW Scottish population);
amber (in winter, localised and >20% of NW European Flyway population)

Long-term trend

UK: rapid increase

UK population size

3,200 indigenous pairs in 1997, and 30,900 introduced adults in 1999 (Mitchell et al. 2000, Rehfisch et al. 2002, APEP06); 15,600–15,800 pairs in 2000 (BiE04)

Status summary

Apart from a small indigenous population in northwest Scotland and the Western Isles, and winter visitors mainly from Iceland, the Greylag Goose is an introduced species throughout the UK. Introduced Greylags have increased very rapidly, at a rate estimated at 12% per annum in southern Britain between the 1988–91 Atlas period and 1999 (Rehfisch et al. 2002). This equates across Britain to 170%, or 9.4% per annum, in the period to 2000 (Austin et al. 2007). The WBS sample became large enough for annual monitoring in 1992, since when further steep increase has been recorded along linear waterways. Annual breeding-season monitoring in a wider range of habitats through BBS has shown similar strong increases. Winter counts confirm that the introduced population is likely to be already much larger than the latest agreed population size estimates from 1999 and 2000 (Banks et al. 2006).

Population changes

Productivity trends

Productivity information is not currently available for this species

Additional information


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This report should be cited as: Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Crick, H.Q.P., Noble, D.G., Balmer, D.E., Barimore, C., Coombes, R.H., Downie, I.S., Freeman, S.N., Joys, A.C., Leech, D.I., Raven, M.J., Robinson, R.A. & Thewlis, R.M. (2007) Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2007. BTO Research Report No. 487. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends) Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 3 January, 2008