This blog post can be summed up very quickly, so you don’t have to read on. There are three options to a population of wild geese if not any wildlife overpopulating a property or environment.one-Do nothing, leave them be 2- Use lethal means,’ just shoot them!” 3.-haze
That’s it, it’s all you need to know! I’m being a bit sarcastic and trying to make light of a touchy subject that is being more exasperated year after year. For one thing, with more and more wildlands being taken over by development, wildlife often has nowhere to go but peoples’ back yards, literally and figuratively speaking. In my mind, the best solution would be to have smart growth. Coming from a part of New Jersey where it is now wall to wall houses, roads and stores, and now distribution centers, I know the value of conservation lands form way back. But that is a tricky one, who decides what is conserved and at what price to landowners, residents of towns and so on. We live in an upstate New York Town where locals often hate the thought of conservation lands as it takes away housing possibilities for their children and other ‘opportunities”. Of course, it can be argued that if done right, conservation can be a plus for the livability of any community.
There is a growing sentiment in this country to just to leave wildlife alone and not kill or bother, haze at all. People get upset when bears are killed that may endanger a suburban neighborhood. This can hold true for any furry animal, but coyote doesn’t generate quite as much love as some. Lectures on cougars draw huge crowds, but the plight of songbirds not as much. Wild geese can bring people up in arms on both sides of the aisle. I get laughed at convenience stores by the guys in the pickup trucks when they see my business name. I go to homeowner association meetings, and some think what we do is evil…
I have been a farmer on a small scale, let’s say “local, sustainable, organic” since 1983. I managed educational farms for outdoor museums for over 20 years and worked on several small operations, plus we have our own homestead. Right from my start, I realized that if you are going to grow any field crops even on a small scale and gardens and orchards, you have to figure out how to get around hungry insects, birds, and animals. This can be done in several different ways, I have ended up using organic sprays for plant diseases and bugs and used integrated methods too. For the hungry birds and animals, I have used dogs to protect the crops,think”haze” and the farm animals also. Sheep are a great food for hungry coyotes that are pressed by humans to eat other than smaller foods. I got my start in farming at a racehorse stable and watched on my first-day coyotes trying to take down a foul, young horse.
With all this, I should say I have practiced nonlethal means successfully at home and believe that the way we haze with Border Collies is a real and humane solution for goose control. I believe what many noted officials and scientists think, that a barrier,physical or mental, between wildlife and people is the way to go. It is not healthy to allow wildlife bigger than songbirds and squirrels into our yards; conflict is always a great potential. Banging pot and pans to get a bear to stay off and away can be very effective as well as having a good dog like a Border Collie haze to an intent to cause no harm for smaller predators can lead to good long-lasting solutions. This is what we do for goose control. It’s a tried and true solution that dates way back in human history.