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Lou_Duran

  • Karma: +0/-0
OT- Canada Geese
« on: September 06, 2024, 03:49:45 PM »
My home club in north Texas has been invaded by hundreds of these vile creatures.  They are eating two greens near our large irrigation lake and the fairways are full of excrement (reportedly, one goose can produce some two pounds daily) Last year was not as bad and the club contracted with a state wildlife authority for removal.  This was partially successful, but only temporarily.  A canine decoy has been moved around the worst areas, but the geese show no respect.  Our superintendent has bigger fish to fry keeping up with normal daily maintenance- armadillos digging the fairways for grubs don't even get his attention- so a few of us are thinking about how we might help.


Any real life success stories that can be shared?  Or is it futile like resolving putting problems? 

Charlie Goerges

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2024, 04:07:52 PM »
I’ve heard of courses using actual canines.
Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this. - Marcus Aurelius

Brian Finn

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2024, 04:26:41 PM »
I’ve heard of courses using actual canines.
I have seen this at a couple of courses.  There are actually 3rd party services that will come and let their dog(s) loose on the course to chase away all the geese.  I just googled "canada geese dog service" and there were numerous providers.  Adding Texas to the search term will give you more specific results.
New for '24: Monifieth x2, Montrose x2, Panmure, Carnoustie x3, Scotscraig, Kingsbarns, Elie, Dumbarnie, Lundin, Belvedere, The Loop x2, Forest Dunes, Arcadia Bluffs x2, Kapalua Plantation, Windsong Farm, Minikahda...

Bernie Bell

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2024, 04:52:08 PM »
Border collie will do the job.

Rob Marshall

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2024, 05:44:51 PM »
Border collie will do the job.


Yup, our course paid a guy to bring his border collie out at one time.
If life gives you limes, make margaritas.” Jimmy Buffett

Bernie Bell

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2024, 05:47:30 PM »
Border collie will do the job.


Yup, our course paid a guy to bring his border collie out at one time.
I have heard of a club buying one for their super.

Rob Marshall

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2024, 05:52:24 PM »
Border collie will do the job.


Yup, our course paid a guy to bring his border collie out at one time.
I have heard of a club buying one for their super.


Our super has a Portuguese water dog that’s with him every day. He likes to chase them but we only have one family of them this summer.
If life gives you limes, make margaritas.” Jimmy Buffett

Erik J. Barzeski

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2024, 07:12:48 PM »
Dogs work. So do these: https://www.awaywithgeese.com/.
Erik J. Barzeski @iacas
Author, Lowest Score Wins, Instructor/Coach, and Lifetime Student of the Game.

I generally ignore Rob, Tim, Garland, and Chris.

Peter Sayegh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #8 on: September 07, 2024, 09:21:57 AM »
A canine decoy has been moved around the worst areas, but the geese show no respect.
No non-decoy dogs available?

north Texas has been invaded by hundreds of these vile creatures. 
We call them Texans. Been puttin' up with them for decades.

Sincerely, the Geese.

Wayne_Kozun

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #9 on: September 07, 2024, 07:48:52 PM »
A new immigrant to Canada asked about these "cobra chickens" and the name has now stuck.

Mike_Clayton

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #10 on: September 08, 2024, 01:00:16 AM »
The Lakes in Sydney had a problem with birds. The super got a dog, had it trained for a month and problem solved.

Phil Burr

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #11 on: September 08, 2024, 06:26:22 AM »
Fill in your ponds.  They love open space with grass, but nearby open water is equally important.  Have you ever seen a Canada goose in a stream?  Less water equals fewer geese.  I prefer less sadistic and more animal sensitive solutions.

Kyle Harris

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #12 on: September 08, 2024, 07:43:32 AM »
Golf is played out-of-doors.
http://kylewharris.com

Constantly blamed by 8-handicaps for their 7 missed 12-footers each round.

Thank you for changing the font of your posts. It makes them easier to scroll past.

A.G._Crockett

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #13 on: September 08, 2024, 08:06:16 AM »
Dogs are the answer.  The geese will head for the water, and they especially don’t like it if the dog gets in the water with them.  Lots of supers have retrievers and bring them to work; double bonus because the dog gets to play in a huge dog park, and the Canadian Geese go away.
"Golf...is usually played with the outward appearance of great dignity.  It is, nevertheless, a game of considerable passion, either of the explosive type, or that which burns inwardly and sears the soul."      Bobby Jones

Jason Topp

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #14 on: September 08, 2024, 09:12:55 AM »
At our house we got a green laser pointer.  For some reason it freaks out geese but not other, less annoying waterfowl.  You need to avoid hitting them in the eyes. 




I have been told of clubs having some sort of system that uses such lasers but cannot verify. 

Erik J. Barzeski

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #15 on: September 08, 2024, 01:09:52 PM »
Golf is played out-of-doors.
I'm not sure anyone here ever thought of that! </s>  ;D
Erik J. Barzeski @iacas
Author, Lowest Score Wins, Instructor/Coach, and Lifetime Student of the Game.

I generally ignore Rob, Tim, Garland, and Chris.

Philippe Binette

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #16 on: September 08, 2024, 09:14:57 PM »
At my parents summer home by the lake, they'd put a rope held up by stakes at the height of the geese's neck (20-24 inches) in places where the geese can walk out of the water...  they normally land in the water and then walk out. The rope at neck height prevented them to walk out of the water.

Bruce Katona

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2024, 09:40:33 AM »
1. Get a Border collie for the super.  Geese are an issue here in NJ - they no longer migrate - but a Super with a 4 legged sidekick who chases them works wonders.


2. Filling in the ponds isn't an answer - and the strings across the pond are a hassle. 


Geese like to see the approaches to the ponds edge - mown turf provides a good line of sight for the geese so predators can't sneak up on them.  Planting wet tolerant tall grasses along the edge or letting the edge around the pond go unmown limits the line of sight  from the pond to the fairway - the geese will move to another area where they fell safer

Michael Moore

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #18 on: September 09, 2024, 09:41:49 AM »
We had instant success with a plastic coyote silhouette. With truncated legs it swivels gently in the wind. I can't believe how well this worked.
Metaphor is social and shares the table with the objects it intertwines and the attitudes it reconciles. Opinion, like the Michelin inspector, dines alone. - Adam Gopnik, The Table Comes First

Steve Lapper

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #19 on: September 09, 2024, 10:21:56 AM »
The lowest-cost most effective approach has been to string fishing line in multiple lanes at all four edges of ponds approximately the inside 20yards of the shore.


If done correctly, geese quickly figure out that that pond isn't friendly, nor safe and they don't return. Furthermore they don't even congregate and linger at water's edge, and the aesthetic of monofilament lines is hardly noticable.
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."--John Kenneth Galbraith

Erik J. Barzeski

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #20 on: September 09, 2024, 10:35:57 AM »
We had instant success with a plastic coyote silhouette. With truncated legs it swivels gently in the wind. I can't believe how well this worked.
A course near me has some 3D plastic wolves. They too worked initially. The last time I was there… the wolves were still there, and some of them had goose poop on them. :P
Erik J. Barzeski @iacas
Author, Lowest Score Wins, Instructor/Coach, and Lifetime Student of the Game.

I generally ignore Rob, Tim, Garland, and Chris.

Ian Mackenzie

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #21 on: September 09, 2024, 10:44:08 AM »
And I thought this was a thread about clothing.... ;D


How do you know they're Canadian anyway?
Could easily be they entered legally and are now naturalized Americans?

Lou_Duran

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #22 on: September 09, 2024, 11:20:19 AM »
Golf is played out-of-doors.


This a bit too droll for me, but if the implication is that golfers need to co-exist with whatever Nature presents, my home club would be rated very highly.  Besides the Canada geese, we have large rolls of armadillos grubbing high spots of the fairways where chemical treatments were insufficient, beavers regularly harvest trees lacking protective wire mesh for the first few feet from the ground, coyotes, bobcats, innumerable rabbits and squirrels run freely without much resistance from our resident red tail hawks.  I even saw a visiting bald eagle roosting on a large tree by the irrigation lake, maybe 100' above a flock of Canada geese which didn't seem to care.  I'm told that not even the coyotes will eat the geese.


Thanks to all for the input.  I have summarized the suggestions and provided them to our superintendent.  I suspect that he knows what to do, but has plenty other things on his plate.


Our 20+ acre irrigation lake running between the entirety of #14 and 18 is a prominent visual feature for the property and for the home owners along the right sides of both holes.  Some of the recommendations would not work.  The border collie and lasers/lights suggestions seem to be the most promising.  I hope that our supt and the corporate owner will see this as a higher priority than, say, blowing loose clippings several days weekly from the fairways, but work schedules and procedures seem to become customs resilient to change.  I will report if something is attempted.   




john_stiles

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #23 on: September 09, 2024, 04:04:53 PM »
Though just a 'minor nuisance' at my home club many years ago, I did some investigation into handling the situation for the easy and cheap solutions never really worked.


Others mentioned help from 3rd parties and I called a company in North Carolina who sells trained dogs. They could also provide a dog in the spring and/or fall on a limited basis, which I think was limited by your budget.  Their dogs could handle geese and ducks, or just geese, or just ducks. It was key to keep the geese away in the spring before they could lay eggs. They stay quite a while to raise the young if not chased away.


And one thing mentioned to be wary of is the crafty nature of the beast.  They have been know to lure dogs away in the middle of lakes and just tire the dogs out. The dogs can get lost in the chase, tire out, and drown. True or not, I do not know.  Some use those 'water wings' flotation device to be on the safe side.


'Sky carp' is one nickname that seems appropriate.


Good luck Lou.

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: OT- Canada Geese
« Reply #24 on: September 09, 2024, 04:26:47 PM »
At one of the clubs where I used to consult - Inwood CC on Long Island, which is surrounded by marsh and water - their superintendent's dog, Rock, was listed along with the board of directors on the notice board as you entered the clubhouse.  He never tired of chasing the geese!

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