Canines on Contract

Published June 10, 2002

Kirk Mehlhaff is one of many professionals in the goose control business, only he does things a little bit differently. Instead of using the usual repellants, Mehlhaff’s business, Gooseworks, South Lyon, Mich., chases away pest geese with a “staff” of border collies.

“The dogs themselves have a natural instinct for herding,” Mehlhaff said. “We simply use that instinct to get them to chase away geese populations.”

According to National Border Collie Rescue, border collies are bred to herd sheep by giving them a wolf-like stare called “the eye” by professional herders. Sheep, or in this case, geese, see this gaze as a threat from a predator and move away from it in the desired direction.

GOOSE CONTROL

Geese can become the enemy of any landscape contractor as soon as they make themselves at home on a property. They love tenderly–tended turf and ponds, making places like golf courses, corporate landscapes and public parks goose heaven. Once they set up housekeeping on a pond, they tend to destroy the surrounding turf and leave behind toxic droppings that can be difficult to clean up.

Got geese bugging your turf? Here are some options to save your landscaping projects from these feathered pests.

Chemical repellants: These non-toxic, biodegradable products can be sprayed or fogged onto turf grass after mowing. By incorporating the smell and taste of concord grapes, these products make the grass unpalatable to hungry geese.

Decoys:If a migrating goose spots a dead waterfowl in a pond area, it can only mean one thing: a predator. Using floating or ground-mounted decoys of either dead birds or predators can make geese believe the area is unsafe and move elsewhere.

Sonic aversion methods:Ultrasonic units or broadcasted “distress calls” can also tell geese an area isn’t safe.

Harassment: There are numerous options available for goose harassment, which is simply just scaring the geese away each time they land. Dogs, radio-controlled flying objects, gunfire, fireworks and any other method you think would frighten the geese is incorporated here.

The dogs’ natural instinct is to move the geese, not to catch them. Because the use of border collies does not harm protected geese species, it is a condoned form of control by the United States Fish & Wildlife Service in accordance with the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

For goose control, the border collies are used to herd the geese into water and off of turf areas in places such as corporate ponds, airports, parks and golf courses. Companies like Gooseworks and Geese Police, located in Virginia, Illinois and New Jersey, have learned to develop the use of the highly intelligent and loyal dogs for both commercial and residential goose control.

“We get a really good response from our clients once they see that the geese disappear,” Mehlhaff said. “But there’s not too many businesses out there like us.”

In order to prove as effective goose control, the dogs have to be on-site regularly to chase away new flocks. Instead of hiring in a business like Gooseworks, some golf courses, airports and other turf management areas are using their own border collies for goose control.

“You can get dogs already trained for goose control on the Internet, or you can research how to do it yourself on a sort of trial and error basis,” Mehlhaff explained. “That’s how I got started and it’s really been working out.”

Website references on the use of border collies in geese control:

http://www.gooseworks.com

http://www.geesepoliceinc.com

http://www.flyawayfarm.com

http://birdstrike.bcrescue.org

http://www.icu.com/geese/bcis.com

The author is a Contributing Editor for Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at mjenkins@lawnandlandscape.com.