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The impact of wintering geese on crop yields in Bulgarian Dobrudzha: implications for agri-environment schemes

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Abstract

Wintering wildfowl are widely perceived to damage agricultural crops, resulting in economic losses and conflict between farmers and conservationists. However, examinations of the nature and extent of the damage show very variable outcomes, ranging from no detectable impact to yield losses exceeding 50%; this makes it hard to infer losses in unstudied systems. In Bulgarian Dobrudzha, a large wintering goose population almost exclusively consumes winter wheat, but the impact on wheat yields is poorly understood. We used crop exclosures and dropping counts to manipulate and measure goose grazing intensity, and estimated crop yield and its components (grain mass, grains per stem, stem density). Crop yield was 13.2% lower in unfenced control plots than in exclosures in one winter during which goose grazing intensity was high but mainly occurred relatively early in the season, but there was no effect of goose exclusion in an earlier winter when goose grazing intensity was relatively low but occurred late in the season. A negative relationship between grazing intensity and crop yield was found, mainly driven by a lower stem density in heavily grazed plots. We use this relationship to infer total yield loss and calculate the economic impact for the study area to be in the order of €15,000–100,000. However, the generality of these results remains unclear because the impact of a given grazing intensity appears likely to vary according to factors such as timing of grazing, weather, stage of crop development and soil conditions. We discuss the results in light of a new agri-environment scheme that has been launched in the area with the aim of securing appropriate forage conditions for wintering geese whilst compensating farmers for losses and reducing conflict.

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Acknowledgements

This study formed part of the project ‘Conservation of thе Wintering Population of the Globally Threatened Red-breasted Goose (Branta ruficollis) in Bulgaria’, funded by the LIFE+ Programme of the European Commission (LIFE 09/NAT/BG/000230). We are grateful to Daniel Mitev (BSPB), Radoslav Moldovanski and Pencho Pandukov (BSPB) for the fieldwork support and Stanislava Kontrova for her administrative assistance. Thanks to Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research for assisting in the laboratory work and especially to Prof. Dr. Boyko Georgiev, Radostina Hristova and Dr. Svetla Naumova. We are grateful to Kirilovi Ltd., who allowed the experiment to be carried on their farmland and assisted the whole process. Andrea Soriano Redondo assisted with the production of figures. We are grateful to Peter Cranswick and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds, P.O. Box 50, 1111, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Nicky Petkov & Anton Stamenov

  2. Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, GL2 7BT, UK

    Anne L Harrison & Geoff M Hilton

Authors
  1. Nicky Petkov
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  2. Anne L Harrison
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  3. Anton Stamenov
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  4. Geoff M Hilton
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Correspondence to Geoff M Hilton.

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Petkov, N., Harrison, A.L., Stamenov, A. et al. The impact of wintering geese on crop yields in Bulgarian Dobrudzha: implications for agri-environment schemes. Eur J Wildl Res 63, 66 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-017-1119-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-017-1119-0

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