How Many Snow Geese Are Really Wintering on the Skagit Flats?

"Incidentally, the % young this year is close to 1%, so this is a second consecutive breeding failure for the Wrangel Island population." Canadian Wildlife Service researcher Sean Boyd wrote that in February 2024, after a crew fitted 20 tracking collars on snow geese in the Skagit. The Reifel Bird Sanctuary's tracking project page published it, along with a second line: "there are very few Snow Geese in the Skagit area right now, and nobody knows where the rest are hanging out."

That was two winters ago. Since then, the white flocks coming down on Fir Island each fall have kept up their reputation as the valley's biggest winter show. The flock behind them has been getting smaller. In its 2026 District 14 Hunting Prospects, published in September, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says winter counts of the Fraser-Skagit flock "have declined the past four winters" and are approaching a restriction threshold in the Pacific Flyway management plan.

The count behind the white fields

Every fall the Pacific Flyway Council publishes a status table for the flyway's goose populations. The September 2026 edition puts the Skagit's birds next to the other big white flock in the West:

For the Skagit, the three-survey average matters most. Under the Council's interim harvest rule, adopted in 2023, liberal seasons and bag limits continue while the three most recent winter counts, adjusted to adult birds, average more than 70,000. The 2025 index alone came in about 2,600 birds above that line.

The cause is about 3,000 miles away. WDFW traces the decline to harsh weather on Wrangel Island, the Russian Arctic island where these geese breed. That weather has cut chick survival and left few young birds joining the flock. Few people are tracking the breeding side now. A 2025 peer-reviewed population study notes that the long-running cooperative breeding-monitoring program on Wrangel Island ended in 2022. Researchers now learn about breeding seasons mostly from the Skagit and Fraser deltas each winter, by counting how many juveniles show up with the adults.

Where the "more geese than ever" story comes from

Last November, La Conner Community News estimated about 100,000 snow geese in Skagit Valley. It also quoted Audubon magazine's figure that the Pacific Flyway's wintering snow goose population "has more than tripled to an estimated 2 million." Both figures can be right at once, because they describe different groups of birds.

The 2025 study separates two snow goose populations that share the flyway. Wrangel Island birds winter mainly around the Fraser and Skagit deltas, and some go on to California. Western Arctic birds winter mainly in California's Central Valley. The study's model put the whole flyway at 2,389,000 snow geese in spring 2022. Of those, 1,638,000 were Western Arctic birds and about 750,000 were from Wrangel Island. The fast growth in that flyway total comes mostly from birds that never stop on Fir Island.

The local birds also concentrate in a way that makes a smaller flock hard to spot from the road. WDFW describes Skagit flocks as staying within a home range of several miles. They don't necessarily return to the field they fed in the day before, and they strip a food source quickly. Early in the season they feed in corn stubble. Later they spread into winter wheat, hay or silage, and potato fields. Seventy thousand birds packed into a single field still cover it white from edge to edge, so the decline doesn't show from Fir Island Road.

What a shrinking flock changes this season

The first effect shows up in the regulations. In Goose Management Area 1, which covers Skagit, Whatcom and part of Snohomish County, the daily limit on white geese, meaning snow and Ross' geese combined, drops to six during the regular season and ten during the February dates. WDFW attributes the cut directly to the four-winter decline.

If you're out to watch rather than hunt, the season calendar tells you who else will be in the fields. Under state rule, snow goose season in the area runs October 17 to November 29, then December 12 to January 31, then February 13 to 21, 2027. During that last stretch, the state closes Fir Island Farm Game Reserve, the Island Unit, Leque Island, Samish, South Padilla Bay and the Skagit Headquarters Unit to goose hunting. That rule covers goose hunting only. Whether you can walk in depends on each site's own access status, and the Island Unit is closed to everyone this season for construction.

Swans are closed to harvest statewide. WDFW counts several thousand trumpeter and tundra swans in the western part of the district from mid-fall through spring, often in the same fields as the geese.

The viewing map has holes in it this year

The flock is smaller, and some of the places to watch it are closed. WDFW closed the Island Unit of the Skagit Wildlife Area to all public access on July 1, 2026, and it stays closed through fall 2028 while a 270-acre estuary restoration project is built in the South Fork Skagit River. Contractors are staging that project at the neighboring Skagit Headquarters Unit, better known as Wiley Slough. Its access road, parking area and boat launch will close intermittently through fall 2028, and WDFW asks drivers to watch for heavy equipment on Wylie Road. Restoration work at Leque Island finished this summer. A September 15 WDFW advisory warns that it left newly dug channels, steep banks and soft soil, and calls for extreme caution, especially at high water.

These sites are open and working this season:

• Fir Island Farm Reserve. On Fir Island Road, about 2.7 miles west of the South Fork bridge. A dike-top trail overlooks more than 200 acres of estuary and farmland where snow geese and swans gather from fall through early spring. Visitors must stay on the entrance road, the parking area and the short dike trail, and the reserve closes after dark.
• Jensen and Rawlins. These reach the Skagit Bay estuary. Most access is by boat, with low-tide walk-in access from Jensen and roadside parking at the west end of Rawlins Road. Tides and river levels can cut off both, and WDFW recommends carrying a tidebook.
• West 90, the Samish Unit. Off Samish Island Road, with a parking area, a short paved trail and viewing blinds. The draw is the evening flights of waterfowl coming in to feed.
• Breazeale Interpretive Center at Padilla Bay. Near Bay View, with trails and parking that are always open and an ADA-accessible path to an observation deck over the bay.

WDFW sites need a Discover Pass, which the agency currently lists at $51.50 a year or $11.50 a day. Holders of an eligible hunting or fishing license can use the Vehicle Access Pass that comes with it instead.

The geese aren't limited to Fir Island. WDFW says they also spend time on both sides of Interstate 5 north of Burlington and around Edison, and they routinely rest on the district's saltwater bays.

Turning a goose drive into an afternoon

Plan for crowds on the Samish side. Last winter Cascadia Daily News counted about 65 cars along the stretch of Bayview Edison Road known as "East 90," with photographers there for the short-eared owls that winter on the flats from November to early March. The paper reported that the crowding had disrupted local life and led WDFW to add crowd controls. La Conner Community News' guide to visitor etiquette gives rules that apply on any of these roads: pull over only where it's safe and legal, respect working farmland, and don't approach or flush a flock. Every unnecessary takeoff costs the geese energy. With fewer young birds coming in each year, the adults' energy matters more.

Stops along the way:

1. South end, Fir Island and Conway. Conway's Pub & Eatery is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Snow Goose Produce, the market named for the birds, posts a season that ended the first weekend of October, so it's closed until spring.
2. Middle, Mount Vernon. Skagit River Brewery lists hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
3. North end, Edison and the Samish Flats. Breadfarm posts its daily inventory online for same-day pickup. Through October 31 it also sells at the Anacortes Farmers Market on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The season's biggest event is in late winter. The Port Susan Snow Goose Festival is listed for Saturday, February 27, 2027, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center in Stanwood. Entry is $10, with an optional $10 lunch. Bus tours and the full program are still to be determined. The Pacific Flyway Council will have finished another winter count by then. That number will show whether the Skagit-Fraser flock's three-survey average is still above 70,000.

Some homes near Fir Island Road and the Samish Flats look out over the fields where the geese and swans land. If you're thinking about a home near the flats or the bay, or wondering what yours is worth, Rob Skelton can help. Request a free home valuation or consultation.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.