Species with long migrations, such as geese, use many staging sites along their migration route from the breeding to the wintering grounds. Currently, details of the sites, the paths of migration and length of staging are unknown. In our research we mainly used neckbands to mark birds and investigate their movements in well-checked areas. In the more eastern and northern areas, where no humans look for marked birds, we have more or less no data for our study. So it was a great pleasure and help when the Vogelschutz-Komitee e.V. offered financial support to start satellite-tracking of the White-fronted goose in the spring of 2006.

As a preliminary step, we obtained five transmitters and put them on geese in The Netherlands in January and February 2006. We learned a lot about the PTTs and how to fix them on the bird. We also developed an Internet tool that presents received data from the birds to the public in real time. Additionally we learned a lot about the complex migration system of this goose species. Because of the fantastic preliminary results, the use of transmitters will be continued in the autumn of 2006 with more PTTs.