Arctic migrating barnacle geese utilise accommodation fields in a new agricultural staging area

The recovery of threatened species after conservation measures can lead to human-wildlife conflicts. One example of such is the recent population growth of the Barnacle Goose Branta leucopsis, a large herbivorous bird. During migration, geese stage in large numbers on agricultural fields in range countries and cause substantial damage to farms. A combination of repelling fields, where geese were chased off by humans, and accommodation fields, which provide refuge sites for foraging geese, has been suggested as an effective management tool to mitigate conflicts. 
Using high-resolution satellite tracking data, we investigated habitat selection of 41 barnacle geese staging in Northern Karelia, Finland, during spring 2021. We estimated relative habitat use by these geese and conducted a fine-scale analysis of their use of different fields by employing Hidden Markov Models and integrated step-selection analysis. Fields included normal crop (no goose management), project and other (private an..., , , # Arctic migrating barnacle geese utilise accommodation fields in a new agricultural staging area

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tb2rbp0bt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.tb2rbp0bt)

## Description of the data and file structure

This data was used to address the functionality of accommodation fields in mitigating the damage at a new staging site (Northern Karelia, Finland) of barnacle geese belonging to the population breeding in the Russian Arctic. Birds were trapped during early May 2021 with a cannon net while they were grazing on fields. We equipped 50 adult barnacle geese (30 males and 20 females) with solar-powered GPS-GSM/GPRS transmitter neckbands (OrniTrack OT-NL40-3GC, Ornitela, UAB, Lithuania) and individually numbered metal leg rings. GPS resolution was set to record positions every 10 min and the transmission interval was set to 1 h. Data on location and delimitation of individual fields as well as information on field use (crop) were obtained from the Finnish Food Authori...