Abstract
BackgroundThe Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus) breeds across the high plains and plateau of Central Asia and winters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the Indian sub-continent. Of the two recognized discrete flyways of the Bar-headed Goose, the Eastern Tibetan Flyway (ETF) is the larger, comprising at least six migration routes. However, we remain ignorant about their migratory connectivity, habitat use and effectiveness of site-safeguard mechanisms set in place for the species.MethodsWe tracked 30 ETF Bar-headed Geese from Chinese and Mongolian breeding areas to their wintering grounds using GPS/GSM transmitters, to determine their migration routes and stopover staging patterns within the QTP, overlaying these upon GIS layers of protected area status and habitat type, to model their habitat selection.ResultsIn total, 14 tagged Bar-headed Geese provided information on their entire autumn migration and 4 geese on their entire spring migration. Qinghai Lake marked birds overwintered in the QTP (n = 2), geese tagged in Mongolia wintered either in the QTP (n = 3) or in India/Bangladesh (n = 9), representing three of the migration routes within the ETF. In total, tagged birds staged at 79 different stopover sites within QTP in autumn and 23 in spring, of which 65% (autumn) and 59% (spring) of all fixes fell within the boundaries of either National Nature Reserves (NNRs) or Important Birds Areas (IBAs) in the QTP. Bar-headed Geese predominantly occurred on four land-cover types: grassland (mostly by day), water bodies (at night), wetlands and bare substrates (salt flats, dry lake/river substrates and plough) with little change in proportion. Generalized linear mixed models comparing presence with pseudo-absence data suggested geese strongly selected for wetlands as staging habitat, avoiding bare substrates in spring.ConclusionsBased on our limited observations of these tagged geese, this study is the first to show that the current designated National Nature Reserves in place in the staging areas within the QTP appear adequate to protect this increasing population. In addition, Hala Lake in Qinghai Province and adjacent areas used as initial QTP staging during autumn migration (currently outside of designated as NNRs/IBAs) are recommended for protection, based on their use by tagged birds from this study. Habitat modelling confirmed the importance of natural wetlands as feeding areas and safe areas of open water as roosting places.
Highlights
The Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus) breeds across the high plains and plateau of Central Asia and winters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the Indian sub-continent
Birds marked at Qinghai Lake overwintered in the Shigatse Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) (n = 2), whereas geese marked in Mongolia either wintered in the Shigatse Prefecture (n = 3) or continued down into India (n = 7) or Bangladesh (n = 2) to winter (Fig. 1)
Tagged Bar-headed Geese that summered in Mongolia and wintered in India/Bangladesh, arrived in the QTP during autumn migration on average on September 8 (± 7 days standard deviation; n = 9 individuals) and left the QTP on November 19 (± 13 days)
Summary
The Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus) breeds across the high plains and plateau of Central Asia and winters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the Indian sub-continent. The first flyway is the Western Tibetan Flyway, breeding in SE Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and the NW Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China These birds winter in Pakistan and the Western Indian subcontinent and comprise more than 30,000 birds, based on wintering counts, including 1800‒5000 in Pakistan (Li et al 2009; Van der Ven et al 2010), and 19,000‒40,000 at Pong Dam (Takekawa et al 2017), the major site for the species on the Indian subcontinent. Birds from the second flyway, the Eastern Tibetan Flyway (hereafter ETF), breed from Western Mongolia, the SE Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China (hereafter QTP) These birds are thought to winter mainly in the southern QTP and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in China, throughout the Central and Eastern Indian subcontinent, and in Myanmar.
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