Humans hunt millions of wild geese in the United States every year, so you could say their mistrust is justified. Geese can be surprisingly aggressive towards humans, especially when defending their nests and goslings. Geese have a notorious reputation for terrorizing unsuspecting people, however.īut why are geese aggressive? Do they deserve their reputation? Most birds are harmless creatures that pose no danger to humans.
Advocates can also use these results for more immediate mitigation strategies, such as recommending that ships keep a distance of at least 200 meters from bean geese. The authors recommend further research on other birds to create a database of noise-related behaviors, which could inform waterfowl protection policies. While the birds may be able to adapt to mild noises, the high-intensity sounds of ships may cause important changes in bean goose behavior. The results of this study give insight into the noise tolerance of bean geese. However, the duration of the sounds had no effect on behavior. Foraging decreased, while vigilance and flight behaviors increased. Ship noises exceeding 70dB at distances of less than 100 meters or greater than 80 dB at less than 200 meters clearly changed the behaviors of the geese. Results showed that the geese were more sensitive to noise when they were part of a smaller group than a larger flock. Scientists recorded a total of 495 observations across both smaller and larger populations of bean geese. As they ran the different noise scenarios, they used binoculars and monoculars to identify changes in goose foraging (e.g., head lowering, pecking at ground food), vigilance (e.g., neck elongation, scanning the environment for predators), and flight behaviors (e.g., flapping wings frantically, flying in the opposite direction of the sound).Īfter a three-day preliminary trial, data was collected from December 12-28, 2019. They also varied the duration of the playback from 0-1 minutes (short), 2-3 minutes (medium), and 4-5 minutes (long). The recordings were played at distances of less than 100 meters (short), 100-200 meters (medium), and 200-300 meters (long). To obtain recordings of ship noise for the research, they captured the sound near the exhaust cylinder from 1,000 ships on the Nanfei River in the city of Hefei.įor the experiment, researchers simulated ship noise at playback volumes of less than 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 decibels(dB). They studied a farmland area of the Lianhe village in the Shengiin Lake Nature Reserve as the fieldwork site. Researchers selected the bean goose, a common bird wintering in the middle and lower Yangtze floodplain, for this project. This study examines the effect of ship noise on the behavior of wild wintering waterfowl.
High-traffic fishing and patrol ships also contribute significantly to noise pollution on rivers and lakes, causing increasing ecological damage.Įarlier research on avian response to noise has been done with captive birds. Prior research has shown that container ships, oil tankers, ferries, and bulk carriers create the most noise. In wetland environments, ship sounds have been shown to disturb waterfowl. Both trains and highway noise are loud enough to cause observable effects on animal behavior, including birds. Environmental noise influences animal activity in a myriad of ways.
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