STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — The issue of geese in Stevens Point parks isn’t going away any time soon.
During a meeting of the city’s Deer Management Committee on Wednesday the group discussed what action to take going forward, after a new approach to the problem yielded little results this summer.
Scott Hygnstrom with the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and UW Extension has been working with the city on the problem using a new method featuring a Bio-acoustic device designed to scare the birds into the air, then using flares push them up the river to discourage them from coming back to the park. He says this summer proved to be unsuccessful for a variety of reasons.
“We found that it was a challenge to set the geese up in the right position, without any public engagement.” Hygenstrom adds that he had a series of boxes that needed to be checked before they could deploy the device, one of those being he wanted the park to be free from residents before using it. “We tried this a half-dozen times, and not one of those times were we able to get the geese to cooperate or the people to cooperate, nothing aligned for us to deploy it.”
He adds that geese are a moving target, which makes it difficult to try to control them with an acoustic device.
He’s not letting those previous setbacks hold him back. Hygenstrom says the device remains an option, and if they can find a window in what’s left of the summer to try it they will. But between now and the group’s next meeting in October he is going to consider other options. “We will talk about dispersal, we will talk about roundups, other frightening devices, etc.”
He says if rounding the geese up becomes a preferred option more meetings will need to be held with officials from the city parks department and others who monitor the geese. If roundups would occur it wouldn’t be until July of 2019. He says the roundup process does involve putting some of the adult geese down then donating the meat to local food pantries, while younger geese would be taken to other habitats away from the city. “It’s a way of reducing the number of geese on site to reduce the number of problems you have associated with them.”
The group’s next meeting will be held October 17th in the Stevens Point City Hall.
