Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management SHOO! Go away, you dirty Geese!

Your situation - particularly the small island - sounds exactly like my situation when we bought our place back in 2009. The first couple of years we welcomed the geese and their babies because, well, nature. Then after year 2, we realized what a freaking mess they create and got tired of cleaning goose poop off our shoes after fishsing. Stepping in the occasional pile of dog poop is bad enough. This put me over the top. We have an area on our farm we refer to as carcass gulch because that was always where we discarded deer carcasses after processing them. Suffice it to say, there have been other species join the deer skeletons down there. Two to three seasons of aggressively dissuading them from hanging out on our pond has done the trick and we have not had resident geese for a long time. A pair will try now and then but I find that a daily dose of birdshot fired from any manner of scatter gun is a great deterrent and, after only a few days, they give it up. I just shoot in front of or behind them these days and a few shots usually does the trick. From far enough away, there's little risk of injuring them with a properly placed shot, even out of a 12 gauge. Plus, who doesn't enjoy shooting? It's a win-win!