Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Cormorants discouraged...for now

My wife & I put bird scare holographic tape around a few of the water turkey favorite perches yesterday. Today, no sign of cormorants!

Of course, we'll have to mix it up in the future with scare eye balloons and such, but a good start.

Oh yeah, my bride addled two goose eggs, all we could find in the three geese nests on our island. We'll have more eggs to deal with, I'm sure.

PS Yesterday we saw a mallard, today a Muscovy duck. I dont mind ducks, just dislike geese & especially cormorants.

I hope that continues to work for you! We have a problem with cormorants as well. We had around 100 on the 66 acre lake I'm managing a few weeks ago and they were pretty tough to scare off. I am currently trying to get a degradation permit to take care of them but it's like pulling teeth. I've been from the NCDNR to the USDA and am now dealing with the US Wildlife Services. Good luck and if you can think of a way to keep them off of a large BOW, please let me know. Thanks!

Offer a summer job for a few kids to fly drones a few times a day to harass them. Newer drones have range of several miles and can hover, swoop, and harass bigger birds pretty effectively.

I'm sure you didn't touch the eggs to keep them from hatching because that would be illegal. What you meant to say is that you constructed a physical barrier to impede the nest site.

We're probably nearing (or at) the day where you could program one to do it automatically and return periodically to its charge pad

Guess we'll get some of those Goose B gone flashing lights. Too many geese on the island, and I have no intention of shooting them nor anything wrong. Surprised to hear addling is illegal, since the videos I watched about how to do it were from Fish & Game service!

Long term, I'll have to get a bird dog to swim & run them off. Cormorants seem more frightened of scare tape than geese.

I think I read you have to get a permit from F&G to legally addle the eggs. If you can show they are a nuisance I think they will issue a permit.

I think Anthropic was talking about goose eggs. There are so many of them now I don't see how they can be considered any way endangered.

Frank, have you noticed if the tape or big eyes cause any reaction by the GBH? I also wonder how the deer or other animals act as they approach the pond for watering?

John this might have changed since I looked into it a couple years ago, but at the time if you wanted to addle goose eggs you had to have a nuisance permit from Fish and Game. Best I recall I got that information off their web site as well as a video of how addling is accomplished.

I don't think it has to do with being endangered but because they are a migratory bird and thus protected.

You are right. There is no shortage of Geese, either Canada or snow. Unless I suppose you are a goose hunter. They probably want lots of them.

We don’t get any here just fly overs. Would y’all send me a few? Need something else to gripe about other than cormorants and otters.

They used to just mostly pass through here too. Then they started sticking around.The Canada's that is. The snow geese still just pass through. They love to graze wheat fields.

Cormorants don't like the holographic tape one bit. Only one water turkey at the pond today, and it was perched at the opposite end from the tape, totally out of sight. Maybe it will be a different story when they get used to it, or on a calm day.

Geese don't seem to care, unfortunately. But then, I have yet to put up the scare eye balloons, maybe that will make a difference.

Something -- likely a raccoon? -- raided the goose nests last night. We found a complete egg with one side chewed out. Can't say I'll weep any tears for the geese. Whatever it was had to swim about ten yard to get to the island.

I don't know if the scare tape affects anything else other than cormorants. I've heard lots of complaints that the tape doesn't survive high winds, but it is doing just fine so far.

Not to worry Pat. You don't really need the actual geese. I'm sure lots of folks here on the forum that are blessed with these feathered beasts would be happy to send you hundreds of pounds of goose "tootsie rolls" to coat you shoreline and foul your water!

PM me yer new address and I'll get the first truck load of "tootsie rolls" on the way!

Mmmm candy
Thanks Bill sounds like a plan

" Guess we'll get some of those Goose B gone flashing lights. Too many geese on the island, and I have no intention of shooting them nor anything wrong. Surprised to hear addling is illegal, since the videos I watched about how to do it were from Fish & Game service! shocked

Long term, I'll have to get a bird dog to swim & run them off. Cormorants seem more frightened of scare tape than geese."

I have two "geese-be-gone" lighting systems which do not appear very effective to me. It's common for us to have 35 to 40 geese at a time with a record of 150. I have a time with blue heroine which eat a 1 to 1.5 pound trout every other day or so. Yikes. I was concerned about heat getting to the trout this summer, now I have a new nemesis.

Cheers.

I think even the town workers around here addle goose eggs at the city ponds. They have become a health hazard in many places.

Addling is not illegal as far as I know. Seems to be a conflict of news in this one. I am always afraid to ask questions like this as it may limit your options once someone is looking your way, or a neighbor starts to get nosy (we have one of those, particularly bad nosy neighbor).

They are not endangered, but they are Protected by US F&W as a migratory bird. You can addle eggs but to do it legally first you have to get permission: https://epermits.fws.gov/eRCGR/

Thanks for the info, I want to follow the law. May not be an issue any more for me this year as some geese have already departed after raccoon raid on their nests.

Same thing must have happened to ours

First time I've ever been grateful for raccoons!

Visited pond today -- it's about an hour drive -- and geese numbers continue to drop, now down to four from ten a week ago. Only one cormorant still around, and he's far from our holographic scare tape.

Raccoon egg raid seems to have soured Canada geese on our site, thank goodness. We put scare tape on stump the lone cormorant likes, perhaps can drive number down to zero.

Some of scarecrows that I have built to discourage the Cormorants