Human Disturbances to Waterfowl

Annotated Bibliography

205. Wiseley, A. N. 1974. Disturbance to snow geese and other large waterfowl species by gas-compressor sound simulation, Komakuk, Yukon Territory, August - September, 1973. Chapter III in W. W. H. Gunn, W. J. Richardson, R. E. Schweinburg, and T. D. Wright, eds. Studies on snow geese and waterfowl in the Northwest Territories, Yukon Territory and Alaska, 1973. Arctic Gas Biological Report Series, Vol. 27.

Responses of snow geese (Chen caerulescens) to the sound of gas compressor simulators were studied at Komakuk, Yukon Territory. The primary objective was to learn whether migratory snow geese along the Arctic coastal plain are affected by the sound and whether they eventually accommodate it. Although reduced from its maximum volume, the noise of the sound simulators caused snow geese and tundra swans (Cygnus columbianus) to break their flight formations, flare, increase altitude, increase calling behavior, change speed, and (or) land. Snow geese that were both vertically and horizontally nearer to the simulators reacted to sound more frequently; feeding flocks of geese approached no closer than 800 m (½ mi) to the simulator's side where the sound was most intense.

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