A long-necked goose with brown wings. Wild Asian populations graze near wetlands and migrate with the seasons.
Wild adults have contrasting colors on the head and neck, a knob at the base of the black bill, brown back and wings, and orange feet.
A study of Swan Geese along the East Asian flyway used GPS locations with climate, terrain and land-use data to model suitable breeding, stopover and wintering areas. The analysis used 1,113 breeding locations, 698 stopover locations and 542 wintering locations, examining how environmental conditions differed across migration stages.
Predicted wintering areas were concentrated around Poyang Lake and the middle and lower Yangtze River. The estimated protected share of suitable habitat was 9.6% for breeding, 5.3% for stopovers and 9.2% for wintering. The separated seasonal areas form connected stages of the annual migration landscape.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
A 2022 habitat model for the East Asian flyway estimated that protected areas covered 9.6% of suitable breeding habitat, 5.3% of stopover habitat and 9.2% of wintering habitat. Because swan geese use different areas through the year, conservation across all migration stages is relevant.