Table 2.

Measures to preserve and restore reed beds in the presence of geese through management of geese and increasing the robustness of the reed beds.

Actions	Mechanism	References	Potential limitations
Goose population management	Shaking eggs or killing adult geese	Klok et al., 2010; Eythórsson et al., 2017	Keeps population in the growing phase; molting geese from elsewhere may come in
Hunting for fear	Chasing away geese	Cromsigt et al., 2013; Simonsen et al., 2017	Geese may learn that they do not get killed and the fear effect diminishes
Landscape configuration: reducing fragmentation, mosaic and large edge:surface ratio's	Large surfaces of reed beds prevents overgrazing as the agricultural meadows are further away; geese impacts in large reed beds can be positive for other marsh birds	Loonen et al., 1991; Van Eerden, 1997; Vulink and Van Eerden, 1998; Van den Wyngaert et al., 2003	It would not work when large flocks of geese would visit the site just to molt
Cessation of fertilization: do not feed the geese	Making surrounding meadows less attractive for geese: decreasing spill-over grazing on reed	Van Eerden et al., 2005	It may take time for food quality to drop if large amounts of nutrients are still in the soil
Cessation of mowing or grazing	Making the vegetation in the surrounding meadows less attractive, decreasing spill-over grazing on reed	Vulink et al., 2010	Other uses of the meadows may prevent this measure
Water level management	Improving growth and germination conditions of reed by water drawdown in summer making the marsh more resilient to grazing damage	Vulink and Van Eerden, 1998; Coops et al., 2004; Veen et al., 2013; Sarneel et al., 2014b; Van Leeuwen et al., 2014	Geese may eat the newly germinated seedlings as soon as the water level goes up again
Water level management	By water drawdown up to dry fall, geese will not visit the site, preventing herbivory	Amat, 1995; Esselink et al., 1997	Other uses of the water may prevent this measure
Large-scale fencing	Preventing herbivory by fencing off the shoreline for geese, stimulating rejuvenation.	This study	After fence removal geese may still eat the vegetation, herbivory may only be delayed.