1. Since the initial development of the robust design, this capture‐recapture model structure has been modified to estimate temporary emigration, and expanded to include auxiliary information such as band recovery and live resight data using maximum likelihood approaches. These developments have allowed investigators to separately assess individual and group effects on true survival, site fidelity, and temporary emigration. Additionally, recent advances in the BUGS language have allowed researchers to develop increasingly complex, user‐specified models in Bayesian frameworks. 2. The robust design has rarely been implemented in the BUGS language, and previous attempts to parameterize the robust design in BUGS exhibited strong bias in estimates of temporary emigration rates. Given the limitations of current parameterizations of the robust design in Bayesian frameworks, and our research objectives, we have developed a parameterization of the robust design in the BUGS language that produces unbiased estimates of all model parameters. 3. We use this novel model structure to examine lifetime carry‐over effects of environmental conditions during early life on annual breeding probabilities of Pacific black brent (Branta bernicla nigricans) breeding on the Yukon‐Kuskokwim River Delta in western Alaska. We found that individuals that were more structurally developed as goslings bred at increased rates as adults (β = 0.14, f = 0.94), with no effect on adult survival (β = 0.01, f = 0.62). Additionally, we provide evidence for long‐term declines in apparent survival of breeding adult females at the population level (β = ‐0.01, f = 0.90). 4. This novel model structure can be easily expanded (Gibson et al., in review), and has important implications for population modelling at broad scales, where we apply it to a declining population of Pacific black brent. Given long‐term declines in gosling growth on the Yukon‐Kuskokwim Delta, we predict future declines in population trajectories as a result of lifetime carry‐over effects of environmental conditions during growth on adult fecundity, and long‐term declines in adult survival.