During the gold rush time in California, in 1849, there are historic records of barrels of nene preserved in some sort of brine or something, being sent to San Francisco as food for the miners. It was that much of a decimation of the population. They’re good to eat, I have been told, and that was their downfall from the people standpoint and the ground predators, particularly not just the dogs and the pigs that I’ve mentioned, but also the mongoose. Mongoose could easily kill a little gosling. Dogs and pigs particularly could even kill the female, the goose that’s guarding the nest. So the population was down to that. Vernon Brock, my fish and wildlife director friend, said, “Paul, you’ve got a nene at the zoo. We know that Herbert Chipman has got 11.
