The effects of the natural vegetation buffer on the Canadian geese population during the fall and summer months
Katherine Berberet, Katie Scherer, Amber Thompson, Jenny Diebold
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
Full Report Pdf file
Abstract
We studied the effects of a natural vegetation buffer in Vilas Park in Madison, WI, planted in 2005 in order to help alleviate problems with geese in this park. The Canadian geese population has increased over the past years in North America. Vilas Park has seen a sharp increase in geese which has caused numerous problems. Besides being a nuisance to park visitors, they have disrupted the health of the nearby lake. Because of these concerns, the buffer was planted along part of the Vilas lagoon in 2005 as a deterrent. To measure the effectiveness, we compared the use of the area of the park adjacent to the vegetation buffer with their usage of the rest of the park, before and after the buffer was planted. Our findings showed the buffer did reduce the number of geese in this zone. One potential source of error within this study is the times and dates of data collected, this may have caused variation with the data.