Articles from Raleigh N&O

 

Golf courses battle to keep fowls off fairway

By ANDREA WEIGL, Staff Writer

Saturday, July 14, 2001

 

RALEIGH -- More than 70 Canada geese waddled out of the way of Jim Fazzini's golf cart Friday morning as he drove along the 13th fairway at North Ridge Country Club's Lakes course.

 

As Fazzini, the club's general manager, approached the green on foot to point out the areas left bare by geese grazing, he warned, "Don't step in the goose stuff. For some reason, they love to poop on the shortest grass they can find."

 

Since 1997, club officials say, they have tried fireworks, fencing and a $3,000 border collie named Sidney to harass the flock of more than 200 birds into leaving. But nothing recommended by state and federal wildlife officials has worked.

 

Club officials have been left to watch their pristine putting greens reduced to geese feeding grounds. They are beginning to worry about the health hazards of all the feces and feathers lining their fairways.

 

So they petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to have up to 150 birds removed. The club recently received approval, but the permit requires that the birds then be euthanized, which is typically done using carbon monoxide. No date has been set. After the flock is thinned, the club plans to use its border collie and other measures to control the geese.

 

"We have spent thousands of dollars to try to deal with this as humanely as possible," said club President C. Ray Pittman. " ... We regret it has come to this. At some point, humans have to be able to go on living in their natural environment."

 

But the decision has upset biologists with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who sent a letter this week asking club officials to cancel their plans for what they call the "geese slaughter." PETA officials want the club to continue using nonlethal methods to control its geese population.

 

"Geese do not pose a health risk. Their droppings may annoy golfers who get them stuck in their cleats, but those same golfers have a much better chance of getting sick from hot dogs and other unhealthy foods they eat in the clubhouse," said Mary Beth Sweetland, PETA's director of research, investigations and rescue. "The geese couldn't possibly be as troublesome as they're being made out to be."

 

Besides, Sweetland argues, euthanasia won't solve the problem because other geese will move in when the habitat is available.

 

Canada geese have become a problem at many golf courses, corporate campuses and recreation areas across North Carolina -- all areas with bodies of water that attract both people and geese, said Carl Betsill, research and special projects coordinator for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. The geese, which are on the federal endangered species list, have long since lost their migratory routine, instead becoming year-round residents wherever they nest.

 

Cary's Prestonwood Country Club also has a full-time border collie, and Pinehurst Resort has half a dozen collies patrolling its eight golf courses every morning. Last year, park rangers at William B.

Umstead State Park got federal permission to spray mineral oil on goose eggs, destroying the embryos and discouraging the birds from nesting there again.

 

North Ridge may be the first local group to get a federal permission to euthanize the birds, but Pittman said the size of its flock warrants the action.

 

"Ours is by far the largest in the area," he said. " ... Quite frankly, they just outnumbered us."

 

Staff writer Andrea Weigl  may be reached at:    aweigl@newsobserver.com

 

 

 

Dogs get a gander at each goose on the loose

The News & Observer

July 26, 2001

 

RALEIGH -- Operation Geese-Peace at North Ridge took off without a hitch Wednesday, as border collies outfitted in life jackets took to the water to harass troublesome geese into leaving North Ridge Country Club.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Wake County enlisted the help of GeesePeace, a nonprofit organization, to mount the three-day volunteer operation to rid the club's golf courses of more than 200 Canada geese without killing them.

 

The geese have taken over the property since 1997, eating putting greens and scattering feathers and feces on fairways. The club tried fencing, fireworks and a $3,000 border collie to persuade the flock to take off, but to no avail. It finally won permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove 150 birds, but the permit requires that they then be killed.

 

So last week, the SPCA called in GeesePeace.

 

"[The club] didn't want to hurt the birds," said David Feld, president of the nonprofit group, which is based in Fairfax County, Va., and is dedicated to finding humane solutions to geese-people conflicts. "They just wanted the poop gone."

Wednesday morning, in the first shift of the mission, three SPCA volunteers and a few country club employees tried to remove 25 geese from a pond at the course.

 

"It's fun," said Tommy Odom, 22, an SPCA volunteer. "I mean, the geese aren't liking it."

 

One two-man team cruised the pond in a motorboat with one border collie at the bow. Other teams stayed on land with three other dogs, chasing the geese around the pond in golf carts as they communicated with walkie-talkies.

"Every first day of an operation, we don't know what the birds are going to do," said Holly Hazard, vice president of GeesePeace. "The goal for today is to let the birds know that there is something different about this golf course. What we're doing is conditioning them, and it takes a process."

 

Feld said the club's efforts didn't work because its border collie, Sidney, only chased the geese back into the lake, and one dog isn't enough.

 

"They haven't been using the right tactics," he said. "[The geese] know that no land animal can catch them in the water. By putting life jackets on the border collies ... you've changed the environment so it's not attractive to geese."

 

Four border collies were used in the operation, Sidney and three others brought by Debra Marshall, president of Windchazer Inc. in Fredericksburg, Va. They are trained to herd but not to bark and only to bite on command.

Marshall said the dogs are mainly used on farms to herd sheep but also work well with geese. She said country clubs first started using collies to scare off geese in the early 1990s.

 

"We want to condition the geese to believe these dogs are here 24/7," she said. "These birds are a lot more intelligent than people give them credit for."

 

Geese didn't just naturally flock to golf courses, Feld said.

 

"The reason why they're not migrating is because it's not an instinct, it's learned," he said. "In the U.S., because there were clubs that wanted to have geese, ... they brought eggs here. Then they stayed because they didn't know how to migrate."

 

While North Ridge's geese problem isn't unique, it did attract quite a bit of attention. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protested the plans to remove and kill the geese.

 

The club's general manager, Jim Fazzini, said no club members have complained about the publicity.

 

"The members are painfully aware of our geese problem," he said, "and the members are also aware that we're doing everything in our power to solve the geese problem."

 

Mondy Lamb, public relations director for the Wake SPCA, said she is confident that the operation will work.

 

"They're going to harass from so many different angles, they're not going to have a choice," she said. "It's guaranteed. They are going to be geese-free by Friday."

 

However, Lamb said she can understand why the geese would want to stay.

 

"You've got a neon sign that says, 'Succulent Green Grass,' " she said. "If you were a goose, wouldn't you want to come here?"
 

A club's drive to keep geese off its greens

Author: MELISSA DRAPER ; STAFF WRITER

The News & Observer

July 27, 2001

 

Raleigh -- The 200 Canada geese wreaking havoc on North Ridge Country Club's golf courses are learning this week that they are not among those birdies welcome on the greens.

Animal-rights volunteers and North Ridge employees are conducting a "four-day intensive harassment" of the geese to dissuade them from staying.

 

It's a relatively new development for North Ridge, which in the past has made efforts to aid wildlife indigenous to the area.

 

But since Wednesday, water and land units made up of people and border collies have alternately and unrelentlessly flushed the geese from the club's lakes to the land around them and back again.

 

The purpose is to make it "so they've got nowhere to go but to find better grounds," said Mondy Lamb, public relations director for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Wake County.

 

"Therein lies the 'intensive harassment' - no place to land," she said.

 

GeesePeace, a national organization focused on resolving geese conflicts with nonlethal methods, suggested the procedure after its representatives met with those from the SPCA and North Ridge last week.

 

SPCA officials suggested the meeting after hearing about North Ridge's plan to capture and euthanize up to 150 geese. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also expressed concern about the proceedings but did not offer help in finding a solution.

 

North Ridge's original intent was to relocate the birds, but because federal wildlife officials now consider the once-endangered geese as pests, the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not allow intentional relocation. Permits to remove geese are only given under the condition that they are humanely destroyed.

 

Thus, the intense harassment approach is a last-ditch effort to rid North Ridge of the waterfowl, which have plagued the club's two golf courses since 1997.

 

Unsuccessful methods - recommended by government wildlife officials - have included fencing, fireworks and Sidney, a border collie who patrols the grounds daily.

 

"We did everything we could possibly do. We just want to get rid of the geese," said Jim Fazzini, North Ridge's general manager.

 

Compare that to the club's efforts to attract bluebirds. They used to be abundant at North Ridge, Fazzini said, but their numbers seem to be waning.

 

"We've gone into a real 'save the bluebird' program," he said, adding that those birds are part of North Ridge's logo, "part of our fabric."

 

This spring, in an effort called "Adopt a Family," North Ridge bought about 40 authentic bluebird houses from the Newell Farms Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Warrenton and asked club members living adjacent to the golf courses to place the houses in their yards.

 

Residents who volunteered to put up and maintain the bluebird houses also received information about the birds' nesting habits and how to make a special feed to entice the birds.

Whereas bluebirds are always welcome at North Ridge, Canada geese will find Sunday to be the day of reckoning, the day by which the course expects to be "geese-nuisance-free."

 

But the birds may just go to another local golf course. North Ridge is not the only one in the area with a geese problem.

"[Geese] are a real pain in the rear for the most part," said Rik Wall, Hedingham Golf Club's head professional. "The toxicity of their feces kills grass, and it's unsightly. So literally they can destroy a golf course."

 

Wall estimated 50 to 75 geese have taken up residence at Hedingham's two lakes, which, unlike North Ridge's, are somewhat off the beaten paths.

 

"Our lakes don't come into play where the golfers are so much. ... If you hit just a horribly bad shot, they come into play," Wall said.

 

Hedingham doesn't get many complaints about the geese, so officials there have chosen to do nothing about them.

Wake Forest Golf Club, on the other hand, gets a lot of complaints about the 40 or so geese living on the course's four lakes.

 

"One of the biggest things is they just pester the golfers," grounds superintendent Rick Durham said. "These [geese] are almost tame. They tend not to do what you want them to unless you have a dog."

 

At upward of $3,000 each, specially trained border collies - the dogs often used by golf courses, apartment complexes and corporate campuses to scare geese off - are a cost-prohibitive measure.

 

Wake Forest Golf Club is considering putting fencing around their lakes and coating the geese's eggs with oil, otherwise known as "addling."

 

North Ridge will also use these methods, in addition to keeping Sidney the border collie on staff, once they've gotten the bulk of their geese population to take a permanent leave of absence.

 

GeesePeace has also recommended ways of landscaping smaller and out-of-the-way bodies of water on the grounds to be more attractive to new nesters or to the ones who return after Sunday.

 

Assurances from GeesePeace that the four-day flurry of activity will be successful have made Fazzini so optimistic that he won't even consider the "what ifs."

 

"We feel very confident that it will work," he said.

 

If it does, North Ridge will get its wish of being geese-free, the geese will have avoided being euthanized, and animal rights activists will have nothing about which to get up in arms.

 

"We applaud North Ridge for their amazing effort," the SPCA's Lamb said. "Basically, it's a happy ending all around."

 

Nonviolent heckling ousts last of pesky geese from besieged club

The News & Observer

July 28, 2001

 

RALEIGH -- Three days of "goose re-education" brought an end to four years of misery: North Ridge Country Club was finally goose-free Friday.

 

"It was completely successful," said Mondy Lamb, public relations director for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Wake County. "They did what they promised."

 

SPCA officials contacted GeesePeace, a nonprofit that tries to find ways to resolve geese problems without killing the birds, after several unsuccessful attempts by the club to remove the 200 Canada geese.

 

Since Wednesday, SPCA volunteers and North Ridge staffers teamed with GeesePeace and four border collies to chase the geese back and forth from the club's lakes to surrounding grass until they had no choice but to leave the property. "The point was to educate the geese that North Ridge Country Club is no longer a safe place because the border collies are there," Lamb said.

 

Jim Fazzini, the North Ridge general manager, said most of the geese left the club Wednesday, and by Thursday, few remained. "At this time, we have virtually no geese on the property," he said.

 

Fazzini said club officials are "extremely grateful" to the SPCA and GeesePeace for making Operation GeesePeace a success. He said he is confident that the geese will no longer be a nuisance.

 

Fazzini and Lamb said they don't expect the geese to return, and if a few do, the club's border collie should be able to scare them away.

 

The geese had taken over the property since 1997, eating putting greens and scattering feathers and feces on fairways. Club officials tried fencing, fireworks and a border collie to persuade the flock to take off. North Ridge won permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove 150 birds, but the permit requires that they then be killed. That prompted complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which then suggested the SPCA contact GeesePeace.

 

Lamb said her office has received many phone calls from residents across the county about this week's operation. She also said several homeowner associations in North Raleigh have contacted GeesePeace about performing in their neighborhoods.

 

"The word is out there that there is a solution," she said.