The geese causing the problems were thought to be near extinction not so long ago, so they were protected, and the population grew virtually unchecked.
RESIDENT vs MIGRATORY
(Union Mill Lake has Resident Geese!) The geese that force people to keep their eyes on the ground and dance around little cylinders of poop are called resident geese.
These are not the migratory geese seen flying south in a V-formation every fall.
Resident geese stay year-round, tend to be bigger than migratory geese, live longer and have more young.
They have few predators and are not hunted as much as migratory geese.
PROBLEM: What goes in - Must come out!
These resident geese are mainly herbivores, so they prefer grasses and weeds to bugs and insects. They eat grass voraciously.
A single Canada Goose is known to eat as much as three to four pounds of grass daily. This in-turn creates as much as two to three pounds of droppings per Goose. Every. Single. Day.
Now when you’ve got an entire flock of them residing in a public spot, day in and day out, you can start to see how this becomes a major problem. Geese don't have a crop or gizzard like chickens and ducks do. Both chickens and ducks tend to poop mostly overnight, since they collect the food they eat throughout the day and then digest and expel it while they sleep. But geese are different. They don't collect the grass they eat. Instead they eat and poop all day long. The average goose poops about every 12 minutes or so which translates to more than 100 times a day per goose! Goose droppings are shaped like cigars and can range in color from green, to whitish to a light brown color, depending on what the goose has been eating. In the winter when they were eating more wheat and hay, their poop was a brownish color and more solid. Goose droppings are just over 75% water. Like chickens and ducks, geese don't "pee", but instead their droppings are a combination of solid and liquid and combined before they exit the goose's body. This is partly because flying birds (although domestic chickens, ducks and geese don't fly!), can't afford to carry any excess water weight/urine. PROBLEM: What comes out is damaging and dangerous! Canadian Geese expel excess nitrogen from their body in the form or urates or uric acid. Thus their droppings are very caustic, so hosing off patios, decks and stone walkways is important unless you don't want your paint to start peeling and your stone to become pitted. Besides the plain old nuisance of having to deal with house excremented on your lawn and patio on a daily basis, Canadian Geese droppings contain potential contaminants or parasites which are all human transmittable and can potentially infect humans.
There are three particular parasites found among goose droppings. Bacteria - E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella have commonly spread bacteria from geese, along with a few others. However, unless you are directly handing goose droppings or have a compromised immune system with pneumonia or an open wound, your risk of infection is low.
Viruses - Canadian geese can indeed contract the avian flu, H5N1, which can not only be spread amongst themselves, but also to humans. The bird flu is spread initially from handling sick birds, but can then be spread from human to human as with the typical flu. Fungi - The histoplasmosis fungus grows within goose droppings-enriched soil, and if the ground is raked or mowed, the spores can be stirred up and inhaled. Though not always symptomatic, this fungal infection usually affects the lungs, typically causing a cough, chest pain, possibly joint pain and red bumps on your lower legs. The more exposure to the spores, the higher your risk for infection. These parasites often cause diarrhea and fatigue, typically clearing up after short-term symptoms, and occasionally treated with antibiotics.
Risk is of particular concern for children and for pets.
FRESHWATER LAKES:
Affects of Canadian Geese Ever wonder how all of the geese that are congregating in your backyard are affecting the ecology of your pond or lake? Considering each goose can produce 1 to 2 pounds of droppings each day, and a typical Canada goose may poop 28 times a day, it doesn’t look good for ponds and lakes. Geese are major contributors of Phosphorus and Nitrogen in ponds. These nutrients come directly from goose excrement and cause pond eutrophication. Pond eutrophication is a natural process that all bodies of water experience. It is the gradual enrichment of nutrients over time. Goose excrement speeds up this process. Leaving extra nutrients for algae and weeds to grow rapidly. A rapid increase in algae can deplete the water of oxygen, damaging the aquatic environment and causing fish kills. It only takes 1 goose on a 1 acre pond to overload the water with Phosphorus.
(Union Mill Lake is about 4 acres!)
Geese, Algae and weeds in a lake or pond can make it difficult to enjoy the water for fishing, swimming, or boating.
Check out this article to learn more!
SOLUTIONS Experts recommend a three-ring approach to decreasing Canadian Geese population on New Jersey Lakes:
1. Harassment - Scare them away with visual,vauditiry, and animated devices (e.g. drones, motorized boats, lasers, fog horns, fire crackers, predator decoys, etc.)
2. Egg Addling - Finding their nests and either coating their eggs with corn oil to prevent oxygen from getting through or " scrambling" the eggs using a fine needle. The eggs must then go back into the best never to hatch. If the eggs are just removed from the best, the female will lay more. Egg Addling is very dangerous as Canadian Geese are quite aggressive normally and even more do when guarding the nest.
3. Sterilization - Laying out food which promote reproductive sterilization.
The government as well as private companies also can be called upon to do "goose round-ups" in which they catch the geese and either relocate or euthenize them.
Visit our webpage on Canadian Geese!
And most importantly ...
DON'T FEED THE GEESE! Many people want to feed geese, but this is probably the single biggest no-no. Feeding concentrates birds in an area, leads to more feces and property damage, and also increases the risk of disease transmission.
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