Expanding urban Canada goose populations have taken over parks, golf courses, sports fields and corporate parks. Preference for short, highly fertilized grass and ponds attract geese to these environs (Smith et al. 1999), making them difficult to disperse and keep away.

Other geese join them, numbers quickly swell, decimating grasses, fouling the waters and covering everything with droppings. The question becomes, "What can one do to get rid of the geese?"

Canada geese are protected by international treaties. Yet many nonlethal control options exist. A review of those options is presented in "Managing Canada Geese in Urban Environments" Smith, et al. (1999). A short summary is presented here, along with options for egg/nest destruction and lethal removal of geese, all methods that may prove helpful for turfgrass managers.

Quick Tip

Canada geese are creatures whose lives are dominated by learned traditions and instinctive annual behavior patterns. Goslings learn where to be at each season from their parents, returning to where they hatched; nested; brooded young, or molted flight feathers in past years. Being gregarious, resident geese attract migrants in fall. These same migrants then return yearly once they have established a tradition of property use for any given activity but especially past nest sites and territories. Removing such geese requires that you must break them of past traditions and make them establish new ones.

What does all this mean in terms of scaring geese away and keeping geese away? Zero tolerance is the only option for long-term success.

When geese first arrive on unfamiliar grounds they are edgy and easily spooked. Chased off early after arrival, they seldom return. If allowed to stay, they begin creating traditions of property use, raise four to six goslings per pair, and deposit 1.5 pounds of droppings per day per goose — droppings that will mar your well-kept turf.

All animals, including Canada geese, are driven by internal clocks that determine daily and seasonal behaviors. To disperse urban geese, you need to understand these seasonal changes to minimize cost and maximize benefit from dispersal efforts.

Physically removing geese Goose roundups — removing geese from a property to be killed or relocated — can only be done during the late June flightless period. The cost in Ohio in 2004 was about $25 per bird removed, plus $400 or more in set-up and transportation costs. This is a great option to use to remove final birds from properties after harassment and alarm call use, the only options 100 percent effective at removing specific problem geese.

Quick Tip

Alarm call playback following removal prevents new geese colonization and maintains a goose-free area with minimal effort thereafter.

Lethal removal and translocation permits must be obtained from a state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and can only be granted after demonstrating that several methods to scare geese or reduce property attractiveness to them have been tried.

Special urban hunting seasons also help reduce goose numbers, where legal and conditions will permit such. Golf courses and parks are encouraged to permit restricted morning hunting to eliminate problem geese.

Reducing recruitment Egg addling (oiling or shaking eggs to prevent them from hatching) requires permits from state and federal wildlife authorities, and may reduce local populations over time.

Putting obstacles, large sticks or rocks in the nest to prevent further egg laying and incubation also proved very effective. We found 100 percent success nest abandonment and prevention of recruitment in our study (Whitford 2004).