It may be cold now, but temperate weather caused hunters to harvest fewer geese this year.

The goose hunting season started in mid-November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that it was the fourth-warmest November and the warmest December on record for the Northeast.

When warm weather occurs during the goose hunting season, Canada geese don’t migrate as far south into Maryland, and the ones that do arrive are less vulnerable to hunters.

“Global warming undoubtedly had an effect [on goose hunting] this year,” said Tyler Johnson, president of the Maryland Outfitters and Guides Association Inc., a nonprofit trade organization.

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Canada geese can travel about 1,200 miles to Maryland from northern Quebec during the winter months, as their habitat freezes and food sources dry up, said Bill Harvey, game birds section leader for the Maryland Department on Natural Resources. Other geese stay in Maryland year round.

The hunting season for migratory geese ended Jan. 27, and the season for resident geese ends Feb. 15.

The geese may have lingered in New York for most of the season, instead of traveling all the way to Maryland, Johnson said.

“I don’t think the full migration has arrived,” Johnson said. “Their migration is keyed upon the freeze line and snow. We didn’t see the main push of birds coming down until late in the season.”

And the birds that do make the trip don’t fly around as much for food, so they are harder for hunters to spot, Harvey said.

“Because it was such a mild winter, the geese aren’t stressed very much. They don’t have to spend as much time out flying around finding food,” Harvey said. “When they aren’t flying around, they are not vulnerable to hunters.”

The geese were also more difficult to hunt this year because there are more older ones, said Mike Slattery, assistant secretary for resource conservation at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

lgreenback@baltimoreexaminer.com