U.S. EPA
Registered For:

®Bird Shield

 Biodegradable Bird Repellents for Agriculture, Industry and the Garden.

Off The Wires, News & Views.

Vol. 1, No. 5.  October, 2009.

Goose Repellent

Geese are a serious problem in populated areas as well as to agriculture. Bird Shield® Repellent can and has resolved the problem. Check out our tips and field reports. We tell you the good, the bad and the ugly.

Quick tips:

• We can change what they do, where they do it and when they do it, without killing them.
   
• Treat the feeding areas, generally next to water; not the entire turf area.
   
• Geese do not like long grass, weeds or shrubs as predators may hide there. Let the grass grow longer around the water's edge. It can later be re-cut after the geese are gone.
   
• Apply and reapply, if necessary, the repellent immediately after the turf is mown.
   
• Provide "sacrifice" areas where the public can still feed the geese.
   
• Start control before the birds nest. Fall is a great time to start, and
   
• Keep harassing the birds.

Remember, Bird Shield® Repellent is the most successful and cost effective way to get rid of geese. See our July newsletter for the cost comparison between Bird Shield® and the competitor.

Geese frequently congregate in large flocks on ponds and lakes in well populated recreation areas. Here geese destroy the turf and leave their calling cards creating both an esthetic mess and unsanitary conditions. These problems are made worse by people feeding the geese.

Lethal control is rarely acceptable. Because of the frequent human presence and the appeal that these large birds have the need for efficient and economical non-lethal control is paramount. In many of these situations the use of Bird Shield® Repellent is the ideal solution.

Several techniques that have been proven to work.

1. First, study the feeding behavior of the geese and establish their actual feeding areas. They seldom feed over the entire land area and only the areas used for feeding need to be treated.
    
2. A treated buffer about 100 feet wide from the water's edge is usually adequate.
    
3. Geese do not like long grass, this is why they are feeding on the turf area. To compliment the repellent leave the grass to grow longer than it is normally grown around the water's edge as this further reduces use of these areas by geese.
    
4. Apply the repellent immediately after the turf has been mown. Bird Shield® will remain effective for up to 21 days or until the area is mowed again.
    
5. Once the geese have left to find more desirable feeding areas they seldom return and, if they do, they are easy to move again.
    
6. It is important to include a "sacrifice" area where members of the public can still feed the geese. This mitigates public disapproval of the control program in use in surrounding areas of the park or area of concern. By restricting goose activity to smaller areas the number of geese is reduced and damage can be more easily repaired.
    
7. Timing is important. Treatment is best performed prior to the geese nesting as once nests are established it is more difficult to move them. Further, once the eggs hatch the goslings and the adults are unable to fly until they complete the moult and are almost impossible to relocate.
    
8. Persistence is the key. All animal management programs are more effective if multiple control strategies are employed. The efficacy of a control operation using Bird Shield® Repellent can be enhanced by encouraging the public to only feed the geese in restricted, low impact areas and by encouraging the geese to relocate using scare devices or harassment where possible.

Minimizing damage is the primary objective in any animal management situation but we must also consider the animals' welfare whilst at the same time incurring the lowest possible cost for optimum control. The use of EPA approved, food grade Bird Shield® Repellent as a control method to mitigate a problem is, in almost all cases, much more acceptable to the public. It is also the least expensive.

Real Situations With Very Real Results.

1. Chief Timothy State Park, Clarkston, Washington State, 1998. In this Park over 3000 geese lived year around on a 200 acre island. The two beaches, 75 unit camp ground, roads, walkways and the boat ramp were literally covered with goose droppings. It was a significant health hazard. People refused to use the park. Within 21 days of the application of Bird Shield® along the water's edge only 185 birds remained. The State now maintains the population at that level as the geese are the site's logo and the public enjoy seeing the birds, but only in limited numbers.
    
2. Anchorage Department of Parks and Recreation, 2002. The State was overwhelmed with massive numbers of geese in all of their urban parks and playgrounds, in spite of there being suitable areas available for the geese elsewhere. One month after treatment to all of the affected areas with Bird Shield® Repellent the geese were gone. They moved en mass to new feeding areas where they were no longer a problem. Seven years later the parks and playgrounds are still goose free.
    
3. Snake River Levees, Lewiston and Clarkston. The Army Corps of Engineers used the repellent on the levee parks along the Snake River in Lewiston and Clarkston, Washington State, with the same result. One swimming beach, next to the river, had been closed by the State of Washington because of extremely high coliform bacteria counts. A month after treatment with Bird Shield® it was open to the public again. The biggest adverse affect on the efficacy of the repellent treatment was the public's continued feeding of the geese in the picnic areas which kept the birds on these sites longer than they should have been. Information signs helped minimize this impact on the control program where-as the threat of prosecution was not considered to be an acceptable deterrent from a public relations aspect.
    
4. Clarkston Golf Course, 1999. After using expensive hazing techniques such as dogs, falcons and maintenance personnel riding equipment through flocks of geese, Bird Shield® was applied to the greens along the edges of the water features. Within three days most of the geese were gone. Within two weeks the remaining geese left after a second application of repellent. Today the golf course remains goose free even though it sits in the middle of a Winter refuge.