At the check stations sometimes a darker bird is not counted as a dusky while some lighter ones are. Whats going on here?
At the check station, the employees are looking at only two things: The breast color just below the stocking of the neck, and the length of the bill. If the color is 5 or darker, judged using a Munsell soil chart, and if the bill length is between 40 and 50 millimeters, it is counted as a dusky. If it is lighter or has a shorter bill length, it is not. Nothing else is considered. Using this approach most of the dusky Canada geese brought in by hunters are counted against the quota. Some are not. Likewise the vast majority of the harvested geese from other subspecies are not counted in the quota, but some are. It would be like trying to separate two intersecting spheres. To cut off all of one, you must leave some of the other inside. To get most of the duskys we must include a few lessers, which are counted against the quota. But remember a few duskys go uncounted too.
