Goose control plan approved for area parks

The Three Rivers Park District has approved a plan to control nuisance Canada geese this year by a combination of public hunting, egg destruction, harassment, roundups and fencing.

The tactics are designed to allow enough geese for people to enjoy, while keeping their numbers in check and removing them from popular swimming and golf areas, where they're a nuisance.

"Our biggest problem with letting geese numbers build up too high, particularly with the goslings and their parents around this time of year, is they tend to like to sit on the sand beaches of swimming areas," said Three Rivers natural resources director John Barten.

Goose droppings produce high bacteria levels in the water, he said, and beaches then need to be closed temporarily.

To prevent those problems, Barten said the district uses a suite of goose control methods that remove about 200 geese annually from the parks, a regimen that has successfully kept populations at stable levels in recent years. One technique is to shake eggs and kill embryos, which happens only at Hyland Lake Park Reserve. There, about 50 eggs have been destroyed on nine island nests during each of the past two years. The control method is allowed by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service under 2007 federal rule changes.

A more traditional tactic is to round up adult geese and goslings in June or early July before their flight feathers have grown back. Last year the captures occurred at Baker Beach near Lake Independence, Cleary Lake Regional Park and French Regional Park on Medicine Lake. Cost of the Medicine Lake program is shared with the city of Plymouth. The city of Eden Prairie has had a similar cost-sharing arrangement if geese captures are needed at Bryant Lake Regional Park.

A third tactic allows a public hunt in the fall. That has occurred in Baker Park Reserve and Cleary Lake Regional Park in Scott County in recent years, although no hunt was needed in 2011 for the first time since 1996.

"As soon as the young hatch, they move onto golf courses or onto the picnic areas or beaches because that's where the short grass is, the bluegrass and such that they really like to eat," he said. The geese also seek open areas near lakes or ponds where they can escape from coyotes, raccoons or other predators, Gillette said.

"If the geese would remain evenly distributed across the parks, we probably wouldn't have any problem at all," he said. "But just the fact that they concentrate in the same areas where the people do, that causes conflict."

The plan approved by Three Rivers last week allows for a public hunt this fall, but Gillette said it may not be needed. Whether a hunt occurs depends on adult and gosling population estimates done in late May and June, he said. Commissioners also approved a more general 10-year plan that gives the district flexibility in which strategies it needs to use at different places.

Fences also are used to keep broods of geese off the beaches at French and Cleary Lake regional parks, and sometimes at Lake Rebecca Park Reserve.

The district also allows harassment with explosive shells to scare geese from picnic areas, swimming beaches and golf courses in late summer. And it allows a border collie to be used, if necessary, to haze geese from district golf courses, Silverwood Park and locations with recently planted grass.