BREAKING: Proposed Changes for 2025-26 PNW Goose Season

Growing up in Ohio in the 70s, Canada goose hunting wasn’t a very popular event. Over time, as Canada goose populations increased, this traditional fall season gave way to the addition of an early September season, designed to help manage Ohio’s ever-increasing population of resident Canadas.

The story’s essentially the same here in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) where I’ve made my home since 2015. We have a September goose season, traditional fall season, and, at least for the time being, a late goose season that runs into early March. It’s a glorious time to hunt, this late season.

But before we dive into this dissertation, let’s clarify what constitutes a late goose season.

A late or extended goose season is a hunting opportunity that happens following the close of the regular fall/winter season. For instance, the regular goose season in southwest Washington’s Goose Management Area (GMA) 2 Inland, which includes Clark, Cowlitz, and Wahkiakum counties, and that portion of Grays Harbor County east of Highway 101 closes on January 12, 2025; however, it reopens on February 8, 2025, and continues through March 5, 2025.

So, too, would be GMA 2/Coast’s season from February 8 through the 19, 2025; GMA 1’s white goose only season from February 8-18; GMA 4’s white goose only season from February 15 to March 2; Oregon’s Northwest Permit Zone season from February 8 to March 10, 2025; and other Beaver State “late” opportunities including those for both snows and specklebellies with differing close dates. For a complete list of those Oregon late hunts, go to https://myodfw.com/game-bird-hunting/seasons.

I had an opportunity to talk with Kyle Spragens, the migratory game bird coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and discuss the reason behind this late season and what the future might hold for this February/March hunting opportunity.

Before we begin, I think it’s important to remind and/or inform the readers that unlike my native Ohio where we had one subspecies of Canada, Washington and Oregon play home to SEVEN subspecies, those being (from small to large) the cackler, Aleutian, Taverner’s, lesser, dusky, Vancouver, and Western. As you’ll soon read, the concern currently in the PNW lies with the cackler population; however, the dusky subspecies, today hold a "prohibited to take” status, and played a role in this seemingly dynamic maelstrom that is the goose season setting process in the PNW.

Cackling Canada goose (Branta Hutchinsii) numbers “tanked,” Spragens explained, in the mid-1980s. At roughly that same time or shortly thereafter, and for whatever reason, the bulk of the population shifted its wintering location north from central California to the Willamette Valley and, thanks to a series of extremely restrictive harvest regulations, the population began to rebound. In the Valley and much to the chagrin of the sod farmers there, these now burgeoning flocks of grazers took to liking the fresh green grass. So, to help the farmers, Oregon and Washington instituted a late goose season, which would still allow for consumptive use under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines.

And it worked—for a while. Over the course of the last several years, the past three in particular, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists have documented via breeding population aerial surveys done in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta,) a dramatic downturn in the cackling Canada goose population. In a nutshell, the subspecies carries with it a 250,000 (individual) objective; that is, the survey estimate must be at least 250,000 or steps must be initiated to prevent any further reduction. The most recent survey done in May of 2024 came up with 126,443; the three-year average, an eyebrow-raising 175,000, both obviously well below the 250,000-population objective and continuing to trend in the wrong direction.

For goose hunters in southwest Washington (GMA 2) and Oregon’s Northwest Permit Zone, these statistics mean what? “Because of these concerns (which include suspected mortality among cacklers due HPAI),” Spragens said, “and this isn’t speculation. I can tell you that the 2025-26 goose season will see a drop in the daily bag limit in the permit zones (Washington and Oregon) to two birds, and it will truncate the season. There will not be the allowance of dates past February 15, 2026. Rather, goose harvest will not be allowed past February 15, 2026, because of the status of cacklers.” Spragens also tells of a reduction of from four (4) to three (3) Canadas daily in the rest of western Washington, including both GMA 1 and GMA 3, because of a growing presence of cacklers in these areas.

A summary of proposals:

• In the Permit Zones of SW Washington and NW Oregon, goose hunters will see a reduction in the daily Canada goose bag limit to two (2); an elimination of the late February/March season as defined by ‘anything after February 15’; and a reduction in the number of goose hunting days from a MAXIMUM of 107 days to a MAXIMUM of 74 days.
• Everything equal for 2025, the SW Washington Permit Zone (GMA 2) had 105 days of allowable goose hunting during the 2024/25 season, of which 61 days were actually open. Doing the math and with a projected 74 allowable days in 2025 using the same ratio, goose hunters can potentially have 43 days, or 18 fewer days, to hunt in 2025. The details will be finalized by April 2025 as each state works through their season setting process.
• GMAs 1 and 3, or the remainder of Washington west of the Cascades, will see a daily Canada bag limit reduction from four (4) to three (3). This, Spragens explained, is due in part to an increase in cackler harvest “outside of GMA 2 / the Permit Zone.” Cacklers are wintering further north, i.e. Oregon’s Willamette Valley to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, than they have in season’s past where they weren’t available for harvest by hunters in western Washington. This shift could be a likely cause for the steep downturn of cackler populations.
• GMAs 4 and 5, or Eastern Washington, will see a daily Canada bag limit reduction also from four (4) to three (3). This is due not to concerns about cackler harvest east of the Cascades, but of a noted high harvest level on lessers and Taverner’s, two additional subspecies of current concern.

What this means for hunters

The late season has become a favorite part of Washington’s 107-day waterfowl season, and this to include ducks AND geese. This said, however, it’s important understand the balancing act waterfowl managers must play between caution and conservation and providing opportunity to their agency’s constituency. If cackler numbers continue to decline to a point where consumptive harvest is no longer acceptable, then there is the chance that there will be NO goose season, perhaps just in the SW Washington / NW Oregon Permit Zones, perhaps even in all western Washington. A cautious season? No season? Which sounds better?

Two final points of order from Spragens, one via text and the other by email. He wrote – “Finally, and not explicitly stated—cacklers, between harvest on our end of the flyway and harvest up in Alaska, probably experience one of the highest harvest rates of any goose population on the continent. They are an EXTREMELY important species on the breeding grounds on the Y-K Delta, so conservation of this goose is of high priority.

“Why would we 'penalize' hunters by taking away this late season? Simple, the geese have to eat to make eggs in order to hatch the next generation of cacklers. Goose research is crystal clear on this relationship. If geese don’t put on enough weight in February and March, it’s game over. Not enough goslings will be produced. The cackler population status is the main priority. There are harvest benefits when things are healthy; currently, things are bad.”

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