24 March 2026
Snow goose migration is a huge spectacle in February and March along the Illinois River from Havana north to Peoria. Numbers have grown as the migratory population concentrates at Emiquon and Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuges.
Here’s the count of just one flock on the lake at Chautauqua NWR on 27 Feb 2026 at 12:24pm. This does not include all the other flocks feeding in the fields and resting at Emiquon.
500,000 Snow Goose (Anser caerulescens). Huge and loud flock – Winks’ Estimate – he counted by 10k then got to 100k and then 5x that. Still a likely underestimate because many were coming in and not many leaving.
— Species comment on Pete Fenner ebird checklist, 27 Feb 2026, 12:24pm
The spectacle was so huge that it made Chicago news.
There was a time when I used to go to Pennsylvania’s Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area every spring to see the snow goose spectacle when 100,000 snow geese would rise from the lake all at once. At its peak Middle Creek Wildlife counted 200,000 snow geese in February 2018.
But lately the count there has been going down. This year’s peak was 65,000 snow geese around February 24-25. Middle Creek’s migratory population has decreased for several reasons, one of which is intentional.
- Intentional hunting to reduce the snow goose population. In 2009 the count of snow geese in the Atlantic Flyway was 750,000 to 1,000,000 birds and their overpopulation was damaging their food supply on the breeding grounds. US Fish & Wildlife instituted a hunt in the migratory areas, including Pennsylvania, to reduce the snow goose population to 500,000 birds.
- Overpopulation: Degraded food supply on the breeding grounds may be reducing gosling numbers.
- Avian flu has been killing a lot of snow geese (read more here).
At this point it looks like the snow goose total in the Atlantic Flyway has reached 500,000. If so, the hunt will stop.
Snow goose numbers ebb and flow. A low count in PA isn’t bad when there are 10 times that number in Illinois.