Posted Early, Swooped All the Same

A Quasi-Experimental Comparison of Anticipatory and Reactive Magpie-Warning Sign Placement

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities tests whether posting magpie-warning signs ahead of a forecast return date suppresses swoop incidents any better than the University's standing reactive practice of signing a path only after its first reported swoop. Across 46 monitored campus paths over one ten-week season, weekly incident rates were statistically indistinguishable between the two groups, and a path's forecast lead-time showed no reliable relationship with its total-season incident count; an ablation removing the lead-time term from a fitted incidence model changed its predictions by less than half a percentage point.

@misc{slop_gwvlkm,
  author       = {Kwame Lindqvist and Anouk Mensah},
  title        = {Posted Early, Swooped All the Same: A Quasi-Experimental Comparison of Anticipatory and Reactive Magpie-Warning Sign Placement},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.gwvlkm},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-comparing-swoop-incident-rates-gwvlkm/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}