Nonnengans Schleswig-Holstein

The barnacle goose measures around 58 to 70 centimetres, weighs between 1.5 and 2.5 kilograms and is noticeably smaller and more compact than the Canada goose. Its name in German (Nonnengans, nun goose) reflects the striking white facial mask that contrasts sharply with the black neck and breast. Unlike the Canada goose, which shows only a narrow white chin strap on an otherwise black head, the barnacle goose has the whole forehead and cheeks in white. Compared with the still smaller brent goose, which is overall darker and only carries a small white neck patch, the barnacle goose is easily told apart by the fully white face.

The breeding grounds lie in the Arctic tundra. Three discrete flyway populations are recognised: a population breeding in East Greenland that winters in Scotland and Ireland, a Svalbard population that migrates to south-west Scotland and the largest population in north-west Siberia around Novaya Zemlya and Vaygach plus the Baltic, which winters in the Wadden Sea and the Netherlands. This Russian-Baltic population winters almost entirely along the German and Dutch North Sea coast, with strongholds in the Lower Saxon, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein parts of the Wadden Sea and in the Dutch province of Friesland. The flocks feed on salt marshes, short-grass pasture and farmland before returning to the Arctic in spring. Since the 1970s, small numbers have also started breeding around the Baltic and in the Wadden Sea region itself.

The population trajectory is one of the most striking conservation recoveries in Europe. In the 1940s and 1950s, hunting, egg collecting and the catch of flightless moulting birds had reduced the world population to a few tens of thousands. After comprehensive protection, in particular through Annex I of the EU Birds Directive and the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), the populations have rebounded strongly. Today, around 400,000 birds winter on the German and Dutch coast alone, and the total species population numbers several hundred thousand. In Germany, the barnacle goose is listed in hunting law but has no open season and may not be hunted. For hunters it is relevant mainly as a strictly protected species that must be safely told apart from the Canada goose, the greylag and the brent goose during identification before any shot is fired on another goose species.