UCT experts say what’s good for the goose is good for the golfer
GEESE are usually a source of irritation for golfers and greenkeepers by obstructing play, being noisy and fouling greens and fairways.
Research by experts at UCT’s Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, however, suggests there are ways the geese and golfers can co-exist.
“It’s not just golfers who enjoy spending a day on the course,” said the institute’s manager, Dr Rob Little.
“Geese are also drawn to their luscious, irrigated lawns interspersed with artificial water bodies.”
Research by Little and colleagues suggests there are ways the geese and golfers can co-exist.
Geese on golf courses are a global problem, with suggested solutions ranging from blasting goose distress calls across the greens, deploying trained dogs to harass the offending geese, or the deployment of garish scarecrows, none of which make for a particularly pleasant game of golf, or work effectively in the long term.
A team of staff and students at the institute studied the behaviour of Egyptian geese on Cape Town’s golf courses and created a valuable data set which shows that geese seek out particular habitat features that make them feel safe.
“The best solution for both geese and golfers would be to design golf courses in a way that makes them less appealing to geese,” said Little.
“Then, as a secondary measure, falconry is effective at changing the perception of safety for the geese, which makes them less attracted to the golf course.”
Little and his team published the data that supported these findings on UCT’s institutional data repository, ZivaHub: Open Data UCT, to encourage other researchers to reuse and build on the data.
“The more we understand the behaviours of geese and other birds that are perceived as pests, the easier it will be to create nonharmful solutions to manage them,” Little said.