# A question about monogamous geese



## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

Hi. I'm not a hunter, but I'm writing something that involves geese. I hear that geese are monogamous, and if the hunter is kills one and waits, the goose's life-long mate will search for the corpse, allowing the hunter to kill that one too. Have any of you ever heard of that before? If so, do you know what species behaves like this? Anything else you have to add about it would be awesome. Thanks


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Yes they do look for their mate, the distress call the goose uses to locate it's mate is the same call that brings them their new mate. They are know to mate for the lifetime of one or the other, but as soon as their mate dies from natural or other causes they quickly find another mate.


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

Thanks much for the reply.

So the hunting strategy of killing one and waiting for its mate is an actual strategy that is used? Or could it be used? Is this true with all wild geese? Thanks again.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

You are welcome....I have never heard of anyone intentionaly waiting for the mate to return just to kill it, I suppose it happens tho. I don't know if it is true for all wild geese but I have seen this with honkers.


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## Alamosa (Mar 25, 2005)

I believe it would be false to say there is any strategy to kill a surviving mate.

A surviving goose will make several circles at a safe distance to call to a fallen mate. They will not knowingly put themselves in harms way or sacrifice themselves to return to a dangerous area.


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## Old Hunter (Mar 8, 2002)

tanjo I am a curious type of fellow. I am wondering what type of paper you are writing? Is it for a college or high school class,publication.or maybe peta. Let us know what your writings are ment to clairify.


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## Field Hunter (Mar 4, 2002)

We must get cynical in older age.....I was wondering the same thing OH.


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## R y a n (Apr 4, 2005)

I too was wondering if anyone else was a little hesitant the first time they read this question. The way it is worded and presented, it is almost like a bait and fish question to gather a quote from a "Hunting" website that a PETA supporter could use in a paper. I don't believe I have ever heard of a hunter calling a fallen bird a corpse.....

Sometimes it's good to listen to that little voice in your head......

Benelli


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

I'm a college student, creative writing major, and I'm writing a poem. I've already explained this to some other goose hunters I've asked these questions, so I'll just copy and paste what I wrote them. Let me start off by saying I know almost nothing about hunting. Here is a rough outline of the poem's story:

I'm writing a narrative poem about a young, teenage, rural boy from Canada who is shouting off his goose call, because he enjoys playing with and watching the geese for whatever reason (haven't exactly nailed down the reason he's geese calling yet). He stumbles upon some hunters from town who are hiding (Not sure where they'll be hiding. Probably in brush. Do goose huntings use stands?). They tell him to be careful because they thought his calling was a real goose). The hunters have killed 2 or 3 geese with a gun with a (home-made?) silencer (not sure what type of gun. I hear shot guns are mostly what are used, so I guess the silencer won't work for that), and are hiding, relaxing, and waiting for the mates of the dead geese to circle around, calling out to their dead mates. The hunters are waiting for the other geese, so they can kill them too. The boy asks if they'll be there tomorrow, so he can know to stay out of the woods; they say yes. That night, he loads up his bag, puts on orange hunting jacket and pants, and travels through the woods toward the red blinking light of a radio tower. He climbs its ladder and sits on a small platform 1/2 way up, on the red part of the tower--his hunting outfit blends in. The sun has almost risen, and he gets to goose calling. He calls for a couple hours and finally the goose hunters show up on the edge woods, investigating the call. One of the hunters comes into the clearing (for some reason, haven't figured this out yet). The boy shoots the hunter with a rifle. The other hunter runs toward the man thinking he's shot himself. The boy aims and shoots him too. Then he waits for whoever will come and investigate (like the hunters did with the geese (implying that the boy will shoot those people too)).

The poem isn't necessarily anything negative about hunting. I'm not arguing against hunters. I think hunting is an immeasurably nobler way of getting food compared to raising animals and slaughtering them or buying meat from a grocery store. Maybe I'll attempt to make that point somewhere in the poem: probably a comment a hunter says in his dialog w/ the boy.

It's only meant to be a tale about the tables being turned a bit--not on hunters, but on humanity. And the boy is young and detached from society for a reason. He doesn't know any better. He's more animal that way; he doesn't think critically and see the big picture; he lives inside his emotions.

Do any parts of the story (besides the crazy kid) seem implausible to you?


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Do you have family? I hope you are OK, it isn't the worst thing in the world to seek a little profesional help when needed. I wish you luck.


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## BandHunter (Dec 17, 2003)

I think that in order to wrtie a truley good narative poem you need to have a good knowledge base on the sport. I think you are so off base on what you are writing about. You need to go through posts, read hunting, articles, or most of all experiance hunting geese to even have the ability to write something like this. That would be just like me writing a poem about a boy who has a good mind about Quantum Physics. I know nothing about the subject or the culture of people who study or are involved with such a thing. What I am saying is we at this site could sit for three days and have 4 pages of posts to try and explain about goose hunting and the goose hunting culture, but until you experiance it or have a base with in it, you won't fully understand any of it..And people who are hunters might read your article and think less of your poetic abilities and your credabilty if you write about something that you no nothing about. So my advice would be to pick a topic you know about and incorporate that into you poem. Just my 2 cents..
Michael
Jay
McNeal


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

Thanks for the advice. Writing only about what I experience in my everyday life would be so boring. I'm obviously doing research.

What about the outline of that story seems off base to you?


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

buckseye said:


> Do you have family? I hope you are OK, it isn't the worst thing in the world to seek a little profesional help when needed. I wish you luck.


The content of my writing is usually pretty odd, mostly about mortality.


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## Drew Willemsen (Sep 29, 2003)

:roll: wow


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

I guess odd is not so bad, I enjoy Kings stuff. It can be anything you want it to be, it sounds pretty cool already. I don't think it should anger to many eco-terrorists.


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

Okay, maybe I'm not getting the punchline...but what does a boy shooting other hunters have to do with monogamous geese? I get emails all the time like this, usually criticizing me for hunting.


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

The people (the wives will notice the absence first) will come searching for the hunters like the geese search for the dead mates.


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## BandHunter (Dec 17, 2003)

Dru said it best... WOW


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## wtrfwlr (Sep 29, 2004)

My question is where did you find out about geese mating for life?? If you don't hunt, I guess you could research it but honestly what on Earth made you think of a story line like that for a poem? I have to agree with my counterparts here this smells a little fishy :roll:


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## Draker16 (Nov 23, 2004)

this is definately odd, i dont know what your motives are but you should post your poem after you write it.


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## Field Hunter (Mar 4, 2002)

I don't think this has anything to do with geese or with hunting....this person's work might need to be shown to the local authorities. Shooting the hunters with a rifle? Not Good!!!! Shooting anyone with a rifle? Not Good!!!!


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## duckbuster808 (Apr 27, 2004)

i agree with field hunter. this is deffinitely not normal. no one should even think about shooting someone with a rifle let alone write about it. sounds pretty odd to me!


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Oh come on guys although it is suspicious to us this is a free country yet and he can write what he wants. It's up to Chris to accept it or not and you guys to not read it if you don't like it. Just let the wind blow it away. To each their own guys...


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## BandHunter (Dec 17, 2003)

I dont care what he writes personally.. It is just that how can you write about hunting when you know nothing about it. He might be able to read about it, and maybe pick up a few pointers.. But something like a poem has to have feelingbuilt into it..How can you have feelings about something you have never experianced? Until he has layed in the decoys on a cool crisp autumn morning, and wiped the sleep from his eyes as the first flock of honkers comes and sets up into the morning breeze... He will never fully understand what we go through and what drives us to do the sport we love.

Hunting to me isnt something we all just do, it is a feeling you get from many diffrent circumstances. The person who is writing this article is so off base with what they are writing about, that I dont think it is worth them to even write it. That is my opinion, I mean he can write what he wants I just believe that if any hunter reads this he will think it fishy and not be able to fully relate to the topic. Just my 2 cents...
Bandhunter


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## 870 XPRS (Mar 12, 2003)

That's a poem? Sounds more like a short story to me. I agree with a little of all of you. It doesn't really matter what he writes to me, you should be free to write whatever you want. I don't think that he has to have sat in the dekes to write about something, but I do think he should have a little knowledge of the subject. I don't know to many goose hunters that hang around out in the trees with silenced shotguns shooting into the brush everytime they hear something that sounds like a goose. The whole thing sounds a little fishy to me.


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

I don't know but to me this seems very fishy. And I know that you should have and do have the right to write about anything you wnat but some things also should set off an alarm!! :eyeroll:


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## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

At goosehuntingchat.com, here is tanjo's question:



tanjo said:


> Is it probable for a hunter to get a call a human makes with a goose call mixed up with the sound of an actual goose?


Here the question is on monogomous geese, there must be a lot of poem's due this semester on geese I guess...And here is tanjo's reply when someone questions why there needs to be management:



tanjo said:


> What about humans over populating the land and destroying the habitat? Do deer get to don .22's and take them out, because they get in the way?


tanjo, is there any more hunting stereotypes we can help you with?


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## curty (Sep 18, 2003)

You can write what you want, but thats not a poem its a sick story. :eyeroll: Hunting is a enjoyable experience. Murder is where they send you to the school of hard knocks and when the bell rings you don't get to go home. :eyeroll:


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

wtrfwlr said:


> My question is where did you find out about geese mating for life?? If you don't hunt, I guess you could research it but honestly what on Earth made you think of a story line like that for a poem? I have to agree with my counterparts here this smells a little fishy :roll:


I knew I wanted to write a poem that had a setting on top of a radio tower. Then I had to figure out what it was about. I have an English class called "Perspectives - Humans and Animals" where we discuss literature involving the relationship between humans and other animals. A girl in my class was answering a question about a chimp feeling loss after its pet kitten died, and the girl explained that some species of geese will find their dead lover everytime it died like clockwork, and hunters could kill one and wait for the partner to come. I wrote that down and came up with the story.



> this is definately odd, i dont know what your motives are but you should post your poem after you write it.


Happily. It will take one or two weeks probably. I'm starting the first draft Saturday.



> i agree with field hunter. this is deffinitely not normal. no one should even think about shooting someone with a rifle let alone write about it. sounds pretty odd to me!


It's a poem. Anything goes, really. Plus, turn on your TV for 5 minutes and you'll be lucky if you don't see someone die.



> I dont care what he writes personally.. It is just that how can you write about hunting when you know nothing about it. He might be able to read about it, and maybe pick up a few pointers.. But something like a poem has to have feelingbuilt into it..How can you have feelings about something you have never experianced? Until he has layed in the decoys on a cool crisp autumn morning, and wiped the sleep from his eyes as the first flock of honkers comes and sets up into the morning breeze... He will never fully understand what we go through and what drives us to do the sport we love.


On some level, I can relate to the boy in the poem. That's how I'm approaching it--from his point of view.



> That's a poem? Sounds more like a short story to me.


It's a free verse narrative poem. here's one (I am definitely not Andrew Hudgins. He is a famous poet)

http://www.eagleacademy.org/wldrnss.htm


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

What is the "After the Wilderness" poem about?

Is it the Civil War, and the two boys are brothers fighting for the Confederacy, and they bury their fallen comrades (squirrels=grey?) seperately, instead of en masse, as they would the Union troops? Are the "dead birds and squirrels and bits of uniform" the soldiers from the North and South dead on the field?

It was good, but in that strange "can't wrap my practical brain around it, so I'd just better let it go" way. I guess as I read it a couple more times, I make my own visual and story up surrounding it. I think that's pretty cool...you left it open to the reader.

As for the backlash you are getting regarding the kid shooting people, there was a recent incident in this region that involved a kid shooting 10 people at his school, and everyone pointed to his Flash animation on Newgrounds and his thoughts and ramblings on the internet which foreshadowed the event. So...just to warn you...that's probably why you're getting the reaction you are. Good poem though, about the civil war.


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## fishhook (Aug 29, 2002)

I always thought guys wrote poetry to impress the ladies and help in getting a little action.....not to prove they think like hannible lecter.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

:toofunny:


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

njsimonson said:


> What is the "After the Wilderness" poem about?
> 
> Is it the Civil War, and the two boys are brothers fighting for the Confederacy, and they bury their fallen comrades (squirrels=grey?) seperately, instead of en masse, as they would the Union troops? Are the "dead birds and squirrels and bits of uniform" the soldiers from the North and South dead on the field?
> 
> ...


Aaahhh that wasn't my poem. It is Andrew Hudgins. I'm not him. The poem is about the civil war. The animals on the field don't necessarily represent anything more than animals. They can represent nature and war's ability ravage it as well as humanity. It's what the brother is doing to the animals that's really the focus. I think it's meant to be more of a story where the reader sees the effects of war on people (and nature) rather than any complex metaphor or allegory. Although, it can be those things too.



> I always thought guys wrote poetry to impress the ladies and help in getting a little action.....not to prove they think like hannible lecter.


That's the damp abyss that spawns uninteresting poetry.


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## wtrfwlr (Sep 29, 2004)

This guy reminds me of the guy from the movie "The Secret Window". If u get a chance to see it don't it's not very good. Anyway the guy ends up being a psycho!


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## Alamosa (Mar 25, 2005)

I see nothing wrong with a story about murder. It seems to be the most popular topic for novels.

I like the parallels - the hunters using calls and camoflage to lure their quarry. The murderer using calls and camoflage to lure the victim.

The monogamous geese thing doesn't work, but you may be able to draw another parallel between the hunters decoys and perhaps another kind of decoy somehow created by the murderer.

Be aware that this will freak a lot of people out because of your age. Everyone is on edge over senseless killings - especially in schools.


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## tanjo (Apr 10, 2005)

> you may be able to draw another parallel between the hunters decoys and perhaps another kind of decoy somehow created by the murderer.


That's a good idea and could be a reason the hunter comes out into the clearing. It seems like too much work for the boy to make a human decoy, but possibly some other kind of visual lure along with the sound of the goose call.


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## wtrfwlr (Sep 29, 2004)

Dude ok here's a plot. So I take it your trying to lure these hunters out of the "woods" ( never hunted geese in the woods before, but whatever). To get goose hunters out of their blind or pits, the only way you're gonna lure a real goose hunter out is to fill a field full of neck collared or banded geese. Next to this field of geese there should be a sporting goods store (i.e. bass pro, gander mountain, etc..) with a huge sale on dekes (decoys) calls, guns, boats, etc.... On the other side of the field full of geese needs to be a resturant open 24/7. I dunno about ya'll but I gotta grab some food before hittin the pits, and about noon time, then again when the hunts over. The only other thing that gets true goose hunters out of the pit is a wife, a girlfriend, kids, or a job( these are the most likely things to get hunters outta the field, because they come before hunting). That my friend is how you get a real goose hunter out of the "woods". As a side note you better be pretty high on that tower, cause some guys think 400 yrds is a lethal shot and they'll shoot at your ***. :sniper: ( Eat your heart out Andrew Hudgins ) 8)


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## BandHunter (Dec 17, 2003)

hahaha that a boy show this yuppy what is up!!! :lol: :beer:


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## Drew Willemsen (Sep 29, 2003)

:rollin:


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## wtrfwlr (Sep 29, 2004)

That's what ya call ******* poetry right there


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