IN FEBRUARY, birders from across Washington state flocked to the town of Stanwood, population 5068, for the area's second annual Snow Goose Festival. Set up to boost the local economy, events this year included a pancake breakfast, birdwatching tours, wine tasting and live music from a local bluegrass band.
For festival organiser Laura Byers, the big attraction is the sheer number of geese that come to call at Stanwood - a number that has skyrocketed in recent years. "The fields are white with them," she says. But the booming population is not universally welcome, and may in fact be a stark warning of trouble brewing elsewhere: global warming.
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