Honk, If You Like Geese!

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Camper6 said:
They are a nuisance where I live. The golf course is their favorite stamping grounds.

Anywhere where the grass is cut low and water is nearby is where they hang out and they make a terrible mess and it's not sanitary because people track it on their shoes.

The local hospital had to do something about it. I don't know what they did but the geese are gone.
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We hunt and eat our share . They are overpopulated in the US and make a mess in parks and other green spaces. I know that some golf courses use trained border cookies to haze them. They wear vests that warn golfers not to pet, feed or talk to the dogs.
 
Wigglestein said:
We hunt and eat our share . They are overpopulated in the US and make a mess in parks and other green spaces. I know that some golf courses use trained border cookies to haze them. They wear vests that warn golfers not to pet, feed or talk to the dogs.
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Not being a golfer, I don't pretend to know golf terms but I don't understand this sentence at all! What are trained border cookies and what does haze mean? I've never heard these terms before. Just curious. :unsure:
 
BC Flash said:
My border collie(s) and I walk on the course before it is open for play - the dogs get their exercise and help clear the course of these "pests".
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Back when we used to ride bikes along the river, there were Canada Geese all over the paths......bell ringing/shouting didn't perturb them......then I hit on the idea of barking......."Quick, get into the water...there's a dog!"
 
The size of the group of geese, I refer to military army terms:
team: 2-4 geese
squad: 4-9
platoon: 10-20-30 (small-heavy-reinforced)
company: 80-140 (small-heavy-reinforced)
battalion: 2-4 companies, depending on the wings in a vee or multiple vees
regiment: 2-4 companies, " "
brigade: ~ 4-6 companies, or regiments, depending on the wings.
corps: I have only seen them a few times. They will fill the part of the sky. The early group will circle to gain altitude and only head off when most have risen. It's all over in 15 minutes.
Once I saw them rise to fly north in Salem gravel ponds.
Once a Corps, heading north, just west of I-5, est. half mile away
Once when the corps arrive from the north, at the Salem gravel ponds. When the arrive, only some will land, most will circle then fly off to other foraging land and refuges.
 
Wisconsin Man Fights to Keep His Pet Therapy Geese Named After 'I Love Lucy' CharactersVIDEO

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"A Wisconsin man is fighting to keep his beloved gaggle of geese after receiving a notice from the town of Beloit saying that it was against a town ordinance to keep fowl on residential properties."

"The geese, named after characters in "I Love Lucy," serve as therapy pets to 57-year-old Robert "Bob" Sparks, who was traumatized after a motor vehicle accident, according to a Change.org petition started by his wife, Sylvia Davis."

"In the petition, Davis explained her husband would "lay in a hospital bed, wishing his life away." She said a doctor told her that Sparks "needed a purpose that would make him get up in the mornings and want to live again!"

"That purpose came in the form of five pet geese named Lucy, Ricky, Fred, Ethel and Mrs. Trumble."
 


Marc Bekoff Ph.D. Animal Emotions (2020)
Why Geese Matter
"Geese are sentient, emotional beings who connect many people to nature."

"This essay is dedicated to the memory of award-winning journalist and wildlife advocate Mary Lou Simms who, at the time of her death, was working on a book of short stories called Almost Human: The Hidden Lives of Geese."

"Geese are sentient, highly emotional beings who connect countless people to nature. Despite the natural beauty and value they add to a wide variety of urban landscapes, geese all too often are labeled as "pests" and routinely killed in heinous and inhumane ways without any sort of respect or decency for who they truly are."

"Denver is guilty of such violence. United Poultry Concern's President Dr. Karen Davis notes, "It's quite likely the geese were gassed to death with carbon dioxide while in the transport crates: a slow, agonizing death of suffocation, terror, panic, and pain. Individual birds die at different rates as individuals and it can take many hours for them all to be dead. Also, a bird who seemed dead can revive and will then likely be strangled, beaten with a bat or some other bludgeoning instrument, or both."

"Among the many emails I've received in the past year, one stands out that really moved me, and I quote it with the writer's permission." Anna wrote:

"Hello. Thank you for being against the culling of the Wash Park geese. I have watched them in the dawn hours many many times. I am so sad that they were killed. I took thousands of pictures of them. I am too sad now to walk to the park. Has there been any study that you know of, of the psychological implications of killing all of these lovely birds that people have grown to know and love? One reason I walk is to help with depression, and the geese being gone make me so sad...I am actually grieving right now, as I unknowingly documented the geese for almost a year and a half. I didn’t realize how strong of a connection I had to them, until I drove around the park and saw them gone. I adored the geese and delighted in them building nests in the trees. Hissing at me or a dog that I was walking. Covered with snow. Sleeping and stretching in the morning. Herding their babies."

"Anna's story, like so many I've received, reminded me of Rachel Carson's classic book Silent Spring. People didn't realize the impact of environmental poisons, including pesticides, until the birds stopped singing and the silence was haunting and deafening." READ MORE
 
The Zohead
How a Canada goose changed my life, influencing even the direction of my career

By Mary Lou Simms

Zoey wards off an intruder​

"To this day, I can't tell you what drew me to her."

"I was jogging around a city lake, maneuvering my way through a hazy, low-lying fog when a Canada goose - a wispy little thing with petroleum-colored wing feathers and disheveled black tufts of fur around the neck - suddenly stepped out of nowhere. I stopped short, as startled to see her as she was to see me. Then emerged the rest of the winged entourage: three goslings and a good-sized gander that I presumed was the mate."

"The dad, plainly not thrilled by the intrusion, began hissing. Clearly, I was the one expected to move. Instead I stood there like an idiot. I'd never seen newborn goslings up close, I guess, and I seemed immobilized, unable to place one foot in front of the other. Eventually reason took hold and I stepped aside, letting them pass."

"That chance encounter would mark the beginning of a friendship that would span the years. I couldn't know it then but the mother in this unexpected scenario would change my life in ways I never dreamed, influencing even the direction of my career. She would take me from journalist to activist as I strove to tell the story of the Canada goose and its tumultuous and courageous struggles to survive an often hostile urban environment."

" I liked her immediately. Maybe it was her unerring gentleness around the babies or the way she clucked about, conscious of their every move, but a connection was born. I kept my distance but I took some corn from a back pocket - a treat I carried for some mallard ducks - and spread it along the ground. The mother ate greedily - hungry, I suspect - from having spent much of the previous month cradling a nest. The babies, following their mother's lead, sampled the corn while the dad stood guard."
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