Ardea
Official journal of the Netherlands Ornithologists' Union

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Patterson I.J. (1991) Conflict between geese and agriculture - does goose grazing cause damage to crops. ARDEA 79 (2): 179-186
Increasing goose populations are being blamed by farmers for causing loss of yield from grass and cereal crops. For effective assessment of techniques to manage and control goose grazing on crops, it is essential to know how much loss is associated with a given amount of grazing. Losses can be measured by sampling inside and outside exclosures and goose grazing levels can be estimated from dropping densities or from the time the birds spend on a field. Clipping experiments suggest that the amount of green material removed is closely related to loss of yield; the biomass removed by geese can be estimated from dropping intervals and ingestion rates. There is considerable evidence that goose grazing is associated with significant loss of yield, but there is great variability in the degree of loss suffered at any given level of grazing. It is argued that management and control of goose grazing must take this unpredictability into account.


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