CHICAGO, Dec 20 — No one bats an eyelid at the sight of animals such as rats and pigeons in cities. But Canada geese are a much bigger problem in North America. Residents often try to scare them away forcefully, but North American scientists say this method is counterproductive.

A team of researchers led by Ryan J. Askren of the University of Illinois recently studied how to deal with Canada geese. The noisy, black-and-white-headed birds are becoming increasingly numerous in North America. In the 1950s, about one million of them made their home in this part of the world. Today, the Canadian Wildlife Service estimates that they number some seven million.

Local authorities are struggling to control their population, especially now that the geese are becoming more sedentary. While these birds migrate south in the fall, some are seduced by the tranquillity of North American suburbs and decide to settle there... permanently. Thus, 60 per cent of the Canada goose population in the United States is now resident in the country, according to National Geographic.

But cohabitation with humans is not without its difficulties. Many people complain that the geese gather in large numbers in parks, playgrounds and on piers. They are also said to be responsible for many car and even plane accidents. In 2009, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to ditch the plane on the Hudson River after it collided with a flock of Canada geese.

Birds that are quick to adapt

Residents try a variety of methods to shoo away the birds, including noisemakers, radio-controlled decoys and simply chasing them away. But Ryan J. Askren and his colleagues say there’s no point in harassing Canada geese in the hope of scaring them away. “They seemed to perceive that we weren’t a real threat, just a mild annoyance,” he told New Scientist magazine.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers equipped several resident specimens in Marquette Park in Chicago with GPS trackers and activity monitors. The scientists then observed the animals’ behaviour as they tried to chase them out of the park, walking or driving near them while tapping wooden boards together.

The scientists noticed that while the geese fled, they quickly returned to the park where they made their home. Worse, they returned twice as fast as they usually would on days when the researchers were trying to shoo them away. “Harassment resulted in short-term behavioural changes that [...] did not accomplish the management goals of causing individuals to leave the area or avoid a specific location for more than 48hours,” they wrote in a paper recently published in The Wildlife Society journal.

According to Ryan J. Askren, the best way to reduce conflicts with Canada geese is to change the design of parks and other green spaces to make them less inviting. For example, municipalities could plant tall grass or shrubs along shorelines to make it harder for the birds to move between the water and the lawns where they like to congregate. However, the expert argues that the geese deserve our admiration for the remarkable adaptability they have shown in surviving in areas dominated by humans. — ETX Studio