Keep Geese Moving

By Geoff Westerfield –Assistant Wildlife Management Supervisor, ODNR Division of Wildlife

I hope you are enjoying your summer goose free.  If so, your Lake Management Committee has done a great job limiting the harmful effects of goose droppings this year.  If not, now is the time when adult geese are spreading their new wings and the goslings are taking their first flights and it is a perfect time to return back to heavy harassment with the geese.

Geese are currently going through a “shift” looking for the spot where they are going to spend their time until the Fall so now is the time to be vigilant in chasing the geese off the property.  As I am sure you have heard me say before, the key to being goose free is doing the right techniques right at the right time of the year.  Below I provide a refresher of these techniques for this time of the year:

1)  Never stop short of the geese leaving the property.  Doing so can actually be detrimental to your program allowing the geese to feel like they “won the battle” by still being allowed to use your property even though they were harassed making it increasingly harder to harass them.

2)  If there is water on the property, always chase the geese away from the water.  Water to geese is safety and you want to remove any places where they feel safe in order to be effective.

3)  Look for places to chase geese where they can feel trapped such as thick shrubbery, fences, corners of buildings, walls, etc.  Making them feel trapped will give them a much more effective feeling of vulnerability which will help tremendously in keeping them from coming back to your property.

4)  While any bangers, screamers, lights, decoys, sprays, motion sprinklers, etc. should have been sitting on the shelf not being used over the last few months, now is the time to pull those back out and again begin using them.

5)  The two times to focus harassment efforts is at sunrise and sunset when the geese are going to/from feeding areas.

6)  Stay consistent with your harassment.  You don’t want to send mixed signals to the geese.  The goal is to make them understand loud and clear they are not welcome on your property.

7)  Once you get the geese flying, stick around for a few minutes to see if they are doing a big loop and coming back.  If they do this you should be yelling at them as they are coming back waving your hands to keep them in the air.  If there is a pond they are going to land on, throwing some rocks or sticks to make splashes on the water works great to keep them from landing on the water.

Following these tips will ensure you get rid of the geese quickly to allow you the rest of the summer goose free till the next “shift” on September 1st.