Fascinating wildlife…

Menu

Increased geese populations occupy pastures and city lawns in Fennoscandia

Many geese populations in Fennoscandia are increasing rapidly, and geese have become more visible in human-inhabited landscapes. Currently geese utilize agricultural lands and even urban lawns. High geese brood densities have a significant impact on their environments due to increasing grazing pressure.

Greylag geese graze on pastures and hay lands, preferring short vegetation to high ones. Geese grazing also keeps vegetation short. Geese trimming a lawn in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.

Geese broods prefer pastures near shores

A newly published Swedish study revealed that greylag geese broods are rather picky when selecting farmland fields for grazing. The most used fields were pasturelands near water. Goslings preferred shorter vegetation, assumingly due to its higher quality and the open landscape views in case of predators. Grazing geese also keep the vegetation short.

Broods tend to prefer grazing areas near shores, from where they can easily reach the safety of water when threatened. Grazing geese broods are suggested to pose a fairly small risk of agricultural conflicts due to their preference for near-shore pastures (instead of crop fields for example). However, extremely high grazing pressure by geese can reduce plant biomass, thus affecting livestock grazing. In arctic areas, such as Greenland and Svalbard, geese grazing is observed to be the reason for decreased hay and decreased seed counts in soil.

In contrast to broods that prefer near-shore areas, non-breeding geese can cause conflicts with agriculture, due to their grazing in crop fields. Non-breeding birds that are able to fly can utilize areas further from water, and according to a Swedish study, they also graze also on crop and vegetable fields in addition to pastures. Large flocks preferred typically open and flat with no or few trees or shrubs.

The two differing patterns shown by broods and adults means that geese managers should consider the two behavioural strategies when planning geese management.

Barnacle geese grazing among Helsinki University research cattle. Breeding geese flocks have e.g. destroyed some the university’s research fields and caused high expenses.

City geese have found Helsinki’s shore lawns

The barnacle goose is a fairly new species in Helsinki. The species tends to breed in remote arctic areas, but after geese were released from the local zoo in the late 1980s, geese began breeding on the islands and islets of the Helsinki archipelago. The released geese are assumed to have returned to breed, and brought their offspring and other geese with them. Since then the goose population has been growing and occupying shore areas from the islands and mainland. Grazing geese are nowadays a visible element in the city of Helsinki, competing over space with citizens.

Geese densities are rather high on Helsinki shore lawns, where non-flying broods gather to graze. In August juvenile birds can move further from the shoreline to feed. The best seashore lawns tempt dozens of broods. In urban areas lawns are usually a nice buffet table for the geese: they typically prefer plant species used in lawns, and mowing sustains fresh vegetation. Compared to natural lawns, urban lawns can be better for broods.

This geese enclosure has very limited plant diversity, but Potentilla species not preferred by geese are flourishing.

However, geese grazing is affecting plant diversity by decreasing it. Few plant species tend to dominate in the grazed areas, while the diversity and coverage of species is more balanced in areas with no geese grazing. Good quality lawns benefit broods, because they don’t need to move long distances while grazing. Geese population growth in the Helsinki area has been refracting after reaching ca. 1300 breeding pairs, and one reason is thought to be the limitation of good feeding habitats for broods. Geese already use almost all possible lawns in Helsinki. During dry summers with poor lawn growth geese may be greatly food-limited, which is reflected in the population size. Thus it seems that the barnacle goose population in Helsinki has reached its carrying capacity.

In the Helsinki archipelago barnacle geese nest commonly on rocky islands and islets, where food availability is highly limited. Well-managed city lawns are thus tempting for the broods.

Methods for preventing geese grazing were measured in Helsinki. One possibility is to use plant species that geese don’t prefer, instead of the current species mix that seems to be especially tempting for geese. Another possibility is to fence off areas were geese are not welcome. Goslings cannot fly, and thus cannot reach fenced areas, and they also avoid areas where they have limited visual contact to water.