What's the best way to flush unwanted Canada geese from golf courses, corporate campuses, residential ponds, rural airfields, bike paths, and city parks? Most operations officers and maintenance directors already know the litany of possible cures: bells, whistles, balloons, vinyl alligators, pop-guns, owl decoys, metallic flash tape, hound dogs, and human chasers--or even motorized toy boats circling on water. Some work. Briefly. But Canada geese are territorial, and they are creatures of habit. Their natural instinct is to return to their favorite haunts hours or minutes later.
Since shooting Canada geese is illegal in populated areas and since trapping them can be inhumane and notably impractical for high volumes, what's a public works department to do? Science has an answer--a low-technology machine named GooseBuster. Behind that comical, trademarked name lurks serious science.
Until recently, everybody loved Canada geese, with their distinctive, majestic markings in black, white, and gray. In flight, they're elegant; on land, they're regal and decorous. But something happened when the geese introduced themselves to populated civilization--particularly in manmade domains with large tracts of open land dotted with wading pools and other enticing water features. It was as if real estate developers knew exactly what geese like and built to suit those preferences.
Geese and humans don't mix well when sharing the same space for active use. About 1 1/4 pounds of droppings are deposited per day per goose. Geese are aggressive animals, especially when nesting and raising goslings. They are fully capable of defending their territory by attacking human intruders.
Research indicates that the goose population is expanding into areas of human habitation at a tremendous rate--a geometric progression of reproduction year after year. A few geese on the lawn are beautiful and decorative; a hundred geese rapidly become a major encroachment on domestic landscapes. The problem has become too large to overlook. One man has worked on it a long time, to great effect.
The "Goose Doctor"
Philip C. Whitford, who holds a doctorate in biological sciences in animal behavior, is a professor of biology at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Whitford has been studying goose behavior and vocal communication for decades.
Whitford found that geese recognize and respond instinctively to "alert" calls signifying uneasiness about potential threats and "alarm" calls indicating immediate danger. Reacting to either call, they evacuate without waiting to identify the source. He earned his nickname, "Dr. Goose," while amassing a collection of goose calls tape-recorded in the wild for analysis and interpretation.
Academic theory and real-life practice were put to the test when Whitford learned of a serious goose problem at a corporate park in Ohio, just 90 miles from campus. The maintenance crew at the corporate park battled an infestation of Canada geese, including some that attacked employees, causing falls resulting in hospitalization.
Whitford teamed with Bird-X Inc. of Chicago, a veteran manufacturer of bird control devices, to build a machine that would beat the geese at their own game: recycling their distress calls and re-broadcasting them electronically to roust them from otherwise comfortable settings. Working with Bird-X, Whitford digitized the birds' natural alarm and alert calls so they could be played back through a series of speakers at random intervals and at varying volumes, sequences, and frequencies. According to Bird-X's president Ron Schwarcz, it couldn't have been a more perfect marriage. "Dr. Whitford contacted us, having heard we made similar machines to scare pigeons, gulls, sparrows, starlings, and more with natural distress cries," he said.
Whitford needed Bird-X's help to get his raw recorded data to the point where it could be used in the field. "We knew what a great cooperative effort this would be: the ability to put our real-world experience together with his academic research. We immediately assigned our engineers to the project, and underwrote the cost of materials and development," said Schwarcz. In the process, Bird-X got a valuable education in goose behavior from the goose doctor. And the world got a new machine, known as GooseBuster, which was about to be scientifically tested at the 60-acre corporate park in February 2002.
Where theory meets practice
The random selection, duration, and alternation programmed into the GooseBuster system is designed to unsettle the geese, to keep them on guard, making it difficult for them to accommodate comfortably to the area. Geese love serenity; they do not like to be in a state of constant alert.
"We deliberately picked the worst-case scenario in terms of timing," said Whitford. "It was the beginning of nesting season, when the territorial imperative was at its height." To help reinforce the harassment tactics, Whitford invited the head of security at the corporate park to bring his two Chesapeake Bay retrievers, Stormy and Misty, on occasional weekends for impromptu goose-chasing. The combination of GooseBuster, the pair of retrievers, and the human harassment was dynamite.
As Whitford reports, within 10 days of using GooseBuster and harassment techniques, the "before" average of 297 goose droppings per 328 feet of sidewalk fell to fewer than 6 per 328 feet after using Goose-Buster. Also, the earlier 32 reports of goose aggression against employees each year dropped to zero.
All evidence from this study and others indicates that it is possible to teach geese to avoid even very attractive large grassy sites using multiple techniques in concert with broadcast alarm and alert calls, said Whitford. Geese can learn to avoid places and to observe boundaries set by man.
Golf course test site
Lincoln Park Golf Course is a city-owned and -operated 36-hole course in Oklahoma City. About 100 Canada geese had infiltrated five different locations on the course, including several greens. It was not a new problem, but it was worsening. "The geese had been an ongoing problem for five years," said Steve Carson, head golf professional and general manager of the golf course.
Then in the fall of 2002, Jim Orebaugh, owner of Dovecote Bird Control Services in Edmond, Okla., contacted Carson. "Jim is a golfer, so he knew what we faced," said Carson. Orebaugh explained the science behind the GooseBuster system and suggested that a scientific test be conducted on the 300-acre course.
Carson eagerly agreed and selected the course's highest-profile area with the heaviest concentration of geese and droppings. "One week after the GooseBuster was installed, the geese relocated to a different part of the course--an area that was out of the mainstream and much more acceptable," said Carson.
"The course was basically goose-free for the first time in years," said Orebaugh, who oversaw the strategy. However, two or three months later, the geese slowly and warily returned since there was nothing to disturb them. "That's when we reinstated GooseBuster and purchased a portable unit," said Carson. He and his crew are now following a phased relocation of the geese.