Methods for control of Canada geese

Like any other nuisance wildlife, Canada geese can be a big mess on your property. Controlling Canada geese is not a simple and straightforward task and to be honest with you no one trick will do in most cases, instead you will have to employ an integrated approach to ensure you are getting it right. Different methods will work for different people but having variety at your disposal can prove decisive when the time of reckoning comes. Here are some of the notable tricks that have been tried and tested on Canada geese and which you can deploy on your flock too. 

Start by banning the feeds. There are often two major reasons wildlife stay in some place - safe shelter and food. Nuisance wildlife will wander far and wide in search for food and once they get it they quickly mark the particular spot in their mind with black ink. They will come again and again or set up a home right here so they eat and drink in plenty. When you feed the Canada geese they tend to appreciate and hope that you will feed them every day. They will stick around waiting for you to come with those freebies. Start by strangling their sources of food and limiting their access to water. No food and no drink mean a whole hell to them. They will reevaluate their options at the end of the day and migrating will be on the top of the agenda. You can also fence around food to ensure they have no easy way to it. 

Don't grow their delicacy. The Kentucky blue grass is a cherished delicacy of the Canada geese. They will go almost anywhere provided there is this grass. So what happens when you have plenty of this grass on your parcel of land? They will surely love to stay and enjoy their loved food. Replace this grass with other unpalatable breeds and you will have hammered a spanner in their operations. Planting less nutritious grass that the geese find hard to chew will be tantamount to serving them with an eviction notice. They will try to cope, but with other food sources limited and their grass drying off they will be gearing up for a move. 

Disrupting sight as well as travel paths will do the Canada geese a great disservice. Installation of walls along shorelines is almost sufficient to halt the operations of these birds. Stones and vegetation growing along the edges of the lake or pond will make it less attractive to these birds. Bushes, hedges and shrubs along water bodies give the Canada geese a feeling of insecurity as they are suspicious predators could be hiding in here. Afraid of running into enemy territory the geese will tend to avoid such suspicious areas for their own safety. 

Making the slopes steeper along banks of water ponds and pools also serves to deter the Canada geese from frequenting such water bodies. Research into the behavior of Canada geese in connection to different slopes showed astonishing results. Canada geese were not very much deterred walking along river banks with a slope of fifty degrees and shorter than one and a half meters. However, the birds did stay away from river banks with a slope of sixty degrees and a length of two meters. This means a combination of length and steep slope will scare away the geese from visiting these areas. 

Increasing the distance between the food and the water line is also a formidable discomfort to Canada geese. Research assessing the ease with which, Canada geese could access food located at various distances indicated that the birds will find it strenuous going for food located beyond thirty nine meters from the water bank. Putting the food at an even longer distance will play psychological torture on the birds. Their assessment of risk and effort needed to access food at farfetched distances will be sufficient to persuade then away from such environments. 

Lasers have also been shown to play an important role in scarring away Canada geese. In this line, the green and red lasers have been suggested to be the most effective when it comes to playing torture on the birds' psychology. Shining the lasers into the roosting laces and making random moves will irritate the birds. Given their fear for such lights they will be ready to seek for new shelter where they do not come across such harassments. 

Visual scares are not an easy thing in Canada geese as well. Flagging is one of the more common methods used in scarring away Canada geese. This involves tying Mylar tape on strands - which will produce a characteristic reflection in the sun and make harrowing sound with wind. Canada geese are boot used to such nixes and the reflections in the sin alone are sufficient to send them running for dear life. You can also use other types of visual scare such as terror eyes balloons and more. 

Shooting is another formidable scare tactic you can employ against Canada geese. The explosions if shot guns will get the Canada geese trembling to the bone marrow hunting for the next available exit to take off. Regular scares using shot guns can be effective in disturbing the birds from their roosting areas. Once they have associated their roost areas with this kind of disturbance they will be down with plans to relocate. 



Also read our other bird tip: How to get pigeons out of a wall