Combining modelling tools to evaluate a goose management scheme
Abstract
Many goose species feed on agricultural land, and with growing goose numbers, conflicts with agriculture are increasing. One possible solution is to designate refuge areas where farmers are paid to leave geese undisturbed. Here, we present a generic modelling tool that can be used to designate the best locations for refuges and to gauge the area needed to accommodate the geese. With a species distribution model, locations are ranked according to goose suitability. The size of the area to be designated as refuge can be chosen by including more or less suitable locations. A resource depletion model is then used to estimate whether enough resources are available within the designated refuge to accommodate all geese, taking into account the dynamics of food resources, including depletion by geese. We illustrate this with the management scheme for pink-footed goose Anser brachyrhynchus implemented in Norway. Here, all geese can be accommodated, but damage levels appear to depend on weather, land use and refuge size.
Citation
Baveco , J M , Bergjord , A K , Bjerke , J W , Chudzińska , M E , Pellissier , L , Simonsen , C E , Madsen , J , Tombre , I M , Nolet , B A & Nolet , B A 2017 , ' Combining modelling tools to evaluate a goose management scheme ' , Ambio , vol. 46 , no. Suppl 2 , pp. 210-223 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-0899-5
Publication
Ambio
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0044-7447Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2017. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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