It's that time of year again - ACK!! Scary Geese!!!

As some of you may know, my second life is revolved around my Canada goose management company, WyndSong. 

I co-founded Geese Peace St. Louis, a multi-national organization devoted to resolving the conflict between humans and wildlife seeking a peaceful, harmonious and humane solution acceptable by all.

This is my busiest time of year in the field, because the geese are all pair bonded, nesting, and defending their territories. Those are commonly the front doors of office buildings, planter boxes next to doors, and grass islands in parking lots.  People are terrified of the large, aggressive ganders. People hate them.

It very much distresses me, because if people could just understand the gander and his desire to protect his hen (mated for life) and their prospective brood, they would/should/could be more sympathetic. Just imagine how you would feel if some alien came bursting into your house with your children present and demanded that you leave?

Here are some extrapolated tips that I wrote for the campus newspaper of UMSL- Flo Valley, one of my seasonal sites.  They only have problems this time of year - there is a small pond where the geese spend most of their time, not harassing anyone, until nesting season, where they then move onto their wedded sites (no pun intended) on campus.  The rest of the year, the geese are welcome and tolerated, as they peacefully stay in their pond and off the campus, harassing no one.  Hopefully anyone who reads this can pass these bits of advice along.

There is an early, a middle and a late nesting season, and we (my working, herding Border Collies and I)  work right on through from mid- March to roughly mid-June, when the last brood is done.  To invalidate any further population by eggs hatching, we treat the nests to prevent new goslings. 

The eggs are tested by floating them in water (a yolk sinks, a baby fetus goose rises to the top) and when they are still yolks - just as one buys in the grocery store - the eggs are coated with environmentally friendly corn oil. This blocks the aqueous transfer of oxygen to the embryo and stops its development. If there is any sign of early fetal development (aka a baby goose) the eggs are returned to the nest and a management policy is created with the property owner.

St. Louis was one of the first and youngest cities in the nation to achieve population stabilization and control - we have our current, resident adult birds, but no additional goslings are growing up to increase an overload to a finite population area. 

The hen is let to sit on the clutch for a 2 week period, which effectively stops her ability to re-lay a second or even a third clutch if the first one fails. In the meantime, Daddy is hanging about, fiercely guarding his hen and his nest. It is the gander that causes the attack problem, and I would like to point out several safety tips. First of all, avoid the nest site if possible. 

Carrying an umbrella or one of those sun shades for your car's windscreen can be very helpful. Just pop them open and use them to deflect the blows from the wings of the gander - the hen won't leave her nest, and I don't make her leave by using the dogs - she needs to sit for those two weeks so that the nest can be taken down and they will harmlessly return to you pond area. The umbrella or sun shade also make you appear larger to the gander, and he will back off.

My website, listed below, has Channel Fox 2 news footage listed under the Canada Goose Management section, there it is depicted on video some handling techniques, I allowed an 8-year-old gander to beat me up on film to show how to handle him, normally I am unmolested. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me at the number listed below,

This is a sloppy post, since I am extrapolating, but hopefully the tips will help anyone with a goose problem this spring.  Just please be patient, realize that we built our buildings in their yards and left them nowhere to go, and be generous with your space.

All should be good in the world, God bless the humans and the animals - ALL of them.

Sincerely,

Dorene

TARA Training and Behavior, LLC

WyndSong Border Collies and Canada Goose Management

www.doreneolson.com

314.956.1310