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Canada Geese Taking a Winter Staycation

“Over the last few decades, Canada geese have been wintering further and further north, which was interesting, because the winters have gotten a little more mild over the last few years, but still it’s pretty cold out there and there’s still snow.”University of Illinois ornithologist¹ Mike Ward².

“过去几十年来，加拿大鹅越来越往北迁，这很有意思，因为过去几年冬天开始变得温和一些，但是还是很寒冷，还有雪。” 伊利诺斯州鸟类学家Mike Ward说。

“So you would wonder why these geese are deciding to spend the winter in Chicago, when they could have the opportunity to fly down to Arkansas, Louisiana, somewhere warmer.”Geese who continue south often land in agriculture fields and other wide open areas. Which makes them visible to hunters in those states, who can bag the birds until the end of January.

“所以你会想知道，为什么这些鹅决定在芝加哥过冬，那时他们有机会飞到路易斯安那州阿肯色州的某个地方，”南方的鹅常常在农田和其他广阔的地区登陆。这使得他们可以看到，这些国家的猎人，谁可以一月底还能逮到鸟儿。

“There’s definitely a lot of geese not just staying in Chicago, but lots of urban areas throughout the Midwest and one reason they are doing that is they are trying to avoid hunters, it looks like.”

Of course, staying in cities is no easy life either.

“肯定有很多不只是呆在芝加哥的鹅，而是整个中西部许多城市地区，他们这样做的一个原因，看起来像是躲避猎人。”当然，留在城市生活并不容易。

“It probably would be easier to find food if they would fly somewhere else, to go to cornfields or somewhere else, but they are hanging out in the city but they are acting³ very strangely.”

“如果能飞到别的地方，去玉米地或其他地方，可能会更容易找到食物，但是他们现在城里闲逛，但他们表现得很奇怪。”

“We found that they were using parks like you might expect, but when the weather got bad and it snowed, they were hanging out on top of roofs, so large factories with flat roof tops, they’d spend large amounts of time just sitting there. We also found that they would go to areas like transfer stations or rail cars that had spilled grains, so they would be walking around railroad tracks to find spilled grain.”

“我们发现，他们正在使用像您预期的公园，但是当天气不好时，下了雪时，他们在屋顶上闲逛，所以屋顶平坦的大型工厂，他们会花费大量的时间在那里。 我们还发现，他们会去转运站或铁路车辆那些撒了谷物的地方，所以他们会在铁轨周围散步，从而发现溢出的粮食。

And the effects of that changed behavior are significant.“They are a lot skinner. The ones that go onto ag fields, all the spilled corn and soybeans- they can really fatten⁴ up really well. The birds that we have caught later in the year in the city are a lot skinnier. Of course, the ones we have caught earlier in the year in ag fields, couldn’t have been much fatter, so some of these ag fields are just ideal places for them to just go out and load up on corn and really put on the fat.”

而这种行为的影响是显著的。“他们有很多进入农田，接近所有的玉米和大豆相适应的皮肤- 他们真的可以找到很好的肥料。 我们今年晚些时候在这个城市，捕捉到的鸟类更瘦了。当然，今年早些时候我们在农田里发现的那些农场里，不可能是那么肥沃的，所以这些农田里的一些农场，就是他们出去找食玉米，储存脂肪的理想场所。”

The study by Ward and his colleagues is in the journal The Condor⁵: Ornithological⁶ Applications.

There’s no way to know for sure if Canada geese are wintering in Chicago to avoid hunters—the Illinois goose hunting season also ends in late January—or if warmer winters account for their staycations. But it looks like Canada geese—which are said to taste like beef and not chicken—are going to get tougher for Midwesterners and Southerners alike to put on their tables.

Ward和他的同事们的把研究结果发表在《神鹰：鸟类学应用》杂志上。如果加拿大鹅在芝加哥过冬以避免猎人 - 伊利诺伊州的鹅狩猎季节也在1月下旬结束，或者如果冬季温暖的话，这说明他们的住宿条件发生的改变。但这看起来像加拿大鹅——据说味道像牛肉而不是鸡肉——中西部人和南方人将会变得更加难进食肉类。