Software for Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge winter goose status and trend analyses

Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge winter goose status and trend analyses.- Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge, located on the central Oregon coast near Pacific City, Oregon, was founded in 1991 to provide coastal habitat to wintering Semidi Island Aleutian Cackling and Dusky Canada geese. To determine the success of the refuge in meeting its mission, the refuge annually conducts winter surveys for white-cheeked geese to determine species status and trend (note: white-cheeked geese are members of the Canada goose (Branta canadensis) and Cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii) species, which includes a number of subspecies). These code were crafted to allow a formal statistical assessment of those survey data to 1) assess status and trend for six species (or five species groupings), 2) assess whether changes to survey intensity might provide similar inferential value, and 3) examine patterns in winter goose occurrence and density on public versus private lands in Nestucca Valley. Surveys for white-cheeked geese occur weekly in winter beginning in October and proceed through April; sampling using a consistent survey design began in fall 2007 and continues to the present, but because of disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent alteration to the survey, we limited analyses to the pre-pandemic period (fall 2007 to spring 2019). These code would be useful in replicating this work on current and future data from this or similar sites.