Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape
Background In European and North American cities geese are among the most common and most visible large herbivores. As such, their presence and behaviour often conflict with the desires of the human residents. Fouling, noise, aggression and health concerns are all cited as reasons that there are “ t...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.9846 2024-09-15T17:58:05+00:00 Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape Groom, Quentin J. Adriaens, Tim Colsoulle, Claire Delhez, Pauline Van der Beeten, Iris 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9846 https://peerj.com/articles/9846.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/9846.xml https://peerj.com/articles/9846.html en eng PeerJ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 8, page e9846 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2020 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9846 2024-08-26T04:20:28Z Background In European and North American cities geese are among the most common and most visible large herbivores. As such, their presence and behaviour often conflict with the desires of the human residents. Fouling, noise, aggression and health concerns are all cited as reasons that there are “ too many ”. Lethal control is often used for population management; however, this raises questions about whether this is a sustainable strategy to resolve the conflict between humans and geese when, paradoxically, it is humans that are responsible for creating the habitat and often providing the food and protection of geese at other times. We hypothesise that the landscaping of suburban parks can be improved to decrease its attractiveness to geese and to reduce the opportunity for conflict between geese and humans. Methods Using observations collected over five years from a botanic garden situated in suburban Belgium and data from the whole of Flanders in Belgium, we examined landscape features that attract geese. These included the presence of islands in lakes, the distance from water, barriers to level flight and the size of exploited areas. The birds studied were the tadornine goose Alopochen aegyptiaca (L. 1766) (Egyptian goose) and the anserine geese, Branta canadensis (L. 1758) (Canada goose), Anser anser (L. 1758) (greylag goose) and Branta leucopsis (Bechstein, 1803) (barnacle goose). Landscape modification is a known method for altering goose behaviour, but there is little information on the power of such methods with which to inform managers and planners. Results Our results demonstrate that lakes with islands attract more than twice as many anserine geese than lakes without islands, but make little difference to Egyptian geese. Furthermore, flight barriers between grazing areas and lakes are an effective deterrent to geese using an area for feeding. Keeping grazing areas small and surrounded by trees reduces their attractiveness to geese. Conclusion The results suggest that landscape design can be used ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Barnacle goose Branta canadensis Branta leucopsis Canada Goose PeerJ Publishing PeerJ 8 e9846 |
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English |
description |
Background In European and North American cities geese are among the most common and most visible large herbivores. As such, their presence and behaviour often conflict with the desires of the human residents. Fouling, noise, aggression and health concerns are all cited as reasons that there are “ too many ”. Lethal control is often used for population management; however, this raises questions about whether this is a sustainable strategy to resolve the conflict between humans and geese when, paradoxically, it is humans that are responsible for creating the habitat and often providing the food and protection of geese at other times. We hypothesise that the landscaping of suburban parks can be improved to decrease its attractiveness to geese and to reduce the opportunity for conflict between geese and humans. Methods Using observations collected over five years from a botanic garden situated in suburban Belgium and data from the whole of Flanders in Belgium, we examined landscape features that attract geese. These included the presence of islands in lakes, the distance from water, barriers to level flight and the size of exploited areas. The birds studied were the tadornine goose Alopochen aegyptiaca (L. 1766) (Egyptian goose) and the anserine geese, Branta canadensis (L. 1758) (Canada goose), Anser anser (L. 1758) (greylag goose) and Branta leucopsis (Bechstein, 1803) (barnacle goose). Landscape modification is a known method for altering goose behaviour, but there is little information on the power of such methods with which to inform managers and planners. Results Our results demonstrate that lakes with islands attract more than twice as many anserine geese than lakes without islands, but make little difference to Egyptian geese. Furthermore, flight barriers between grazing areas and lakes are an effective deterrent to geese using an area for feeding. Keeping grazing areas small and surrounded by trees reduces their attractiveness to geese. Conclusion The results suggest that landscape design can be used ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Groom, Quentin J. Adriaens, Tim Colsoulle, Claire Delhez, Pauline Van der Beeten, Iris |
spellingShingle |
Groom, Quentin J. Adriaens, Tim Colsoulle, Claire Delhez, Pauline Van der Beeten, Iris Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
author_facet |
Groom, Quentin J. Adriaens, Tim Colsoulle, Claire Delhez, Pauline Van der Beeten, Iris |
author_sort |
Groom, Quentin J. |
title |
Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
title_short |
Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
title_full |
Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
title_fullStr |
Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
title_full_unstemmed |
Site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
title_sort |
site selection by geese in a suburban landscape |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9846 https://peerj.com/articles/9846.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/9846.xml https://peerj.com/articles/9846.html |
genre |
Barnacle goose Branta canadensis Branta leucopsis Canada Goose |
genre_facet |
Barnacle goose Branta canadensis Branta leucopsis Canada Goose |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 8, page e9846 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9846 |
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PeerJ |
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8 |
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e9846 |
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1810434292182941696 |