We work for various clients from Winter’s end to the next Winter’s beginning. Different clients will have different needs and use our service at different times of the year. Spring is the busiest time of the year for us. We control nesting pairs and migratory flocks and flocks of local population geese. Many clients don’t want geese to nest on their properties and or we will addle eggs in nests with the necessary permit. Summer brings other clients on board who are on lakefronts. These clients will want relief from the large collective groups of families of geese which will go to grassy lawns to feed growing young.
Fall again brings the migratory flocks to our client’s properties. They move in to were we have kept the local populations at bay or to low numbers. Where we had seen just small numbers of geese now large flocks or collective flocks can appear. The flocks are often multiple families of geese. You can tell the young by their higher pitch calls. They no longer have distinguishably smaller bodies or different coloration. It is hard to tell when looking at these large collected flocks of geese whether they are just migratory or a mix of migratory and local flocks. Whatever they are, they are a lot of geese at times on clients properties, as there are on nearby farmers fields.
Earlier in the week my team of Border Collies, Tara and Nash and I were patrolling a school’s playing field in New York on a goose control trip. These are large fields backed by large wetlands. Tara trotted toward one end of the football field and stoped as a large flock of geese took off from the wetlands. The geese overnight in the wetlands. She stopped, looked up and with a word from me ran an out run under the geese letting them know she and Nash were there. The geese in their fight saw the forms of the dogs running under them and started to honk a warning and changed their flight to away from the school. Visits like this have cut down on the number of geese which, if they do, visit the school’s fields to graze.
The Native peoples and farmers on the very land that school is on most probably lived and had to make a living by farming and hunting. One way to keep wildlife from ruining crops and the food supply was, is, with lethal means. The other was, is, by chasing off dear, rabbit and yes, even geese with dogs. People have always had dogs to guard themselves, farm animals and property, fields. There is nothing new about living with wildlife, what is new is our modern lifestyle and what we bring with it. It’s how we employ the culture we bring with us and its knowledge, that matters.