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November 1999
People in Maine are experiencing increasing conflicts with Canada geese. We speak of purposely enhancing habitat for wildlife, but sometimes, by our actions on the landscape, we inadvertently attract certain species and cause conflicts. The situation with geese is a good example of the response of wildlife to our management of the landscape.
For each species of wildlife, habitat is food, water, and cover in an arrangement they can use. Canada geese are terrestrial grazers and eat tender shoots of grasses, marsh plants, submerged vegetation, cultivated grains and wild seeds and fruits. For security from predation, they use feeding sites with open views. Access to lakes and marshes allows them to escape danger. Their nest sites are usually near water in a grass-lined depression on the ground, although very occasionally they nest in a tree in an abandoned osprey nest. Special habitat requirements are shallow water and abundant plant foods.
When we create perfect habitat for the geese, of course, they come. No species of wildlife receives greater benefit from agriculture than do Canada geese. They graze fields of clover and glean fields after crops are harvested. Also, we develop our lakesides and marshes with lawns and remove shrubs and trees that obscure our views of the water. Our parks have lawns to the water's edge, and golf courses are managed in the same way. We fertilize the lawns, making the grass even more nutritious and attractive to geese. Without the layers of the forest, rain and wind carry soil sediments, nutrients and pollutants into the water. Increased nutrients result in the growth of submerged vegetation. Goose droppings on lawns add to the nutrient load being carried into the water. Docks, yards and beaches offer secure loafing sites for preening and sunning, and people complain of the goose droppings in areas of human use.
Compounding our creation of optimum goose habitat is their prolific reproduction. Geese live long lives, often ten to more than twenty years. They become sexually mature when they are two or three years old and they nest every year once they begin breeding. Pairs mate for life, and if one of the pair dies, the other mates again. They have one clutch of eggs a year, with an average of five eggs in each clutch. About half of the eggs will hatch and become free-flying birds in the fall. A single female may produce more than fifty young during her lifetime. Although nest sites are solitary rather than colonial, breeding densities vary greatly and appear to be influenced by the availability of suitable nest sites rather than by territorial behavior. Within a few days of the eggs hatching, goose families may relocate to brood-rearing areas, such as ponds bordered by lawns.
Geese molt annually, after nesting, and have a period of four or five weeks when they are flightless because they shed and regrow their outer wing feathers. In Maine the molt occurs in late June to mid July. This is the time of greatest conflict between humans and geese. Seeking ponds or lakes that provide a safe place to rest, feed and escape danger during this flightless period, the geese congregate on lawns next to water. Once they can fly again after the molt and through the fall, geese increase the distance they will fly for food from their night roosting sites on lakes and ponds. Feeding sites may be golf courses, large lawns and agricultural fields. In October migrant geese may join resident flocks in the movement across the landscape from roosting sites to feeding sites. By winter geese in Maine have moved to areas of open water, perhaps near the coast or farther south.
As a landowner, you can limit or eliminate conflict with Canada geese around lakes and ponds by allowing vegetation to grow up again naturally, or by planting a vegetative buffer between the lawn area and the water. A buffer of twenty-five feet by the shoreline changes the habitat and reduces conflicts with geese. A meandering path maintained down to the water gives you access to the water or the dock. Spacing in shrubs and trees can allow for views of the water from the upland nearby. Buffers decrease the use of the lawn by flocks of geese and also protect and improve the quality of the water. The new Buffer Handbook describes how to create a vegetative buffer and includes a list of plants for each of Maine's climate hardiness zones that perform well in shoreline areas. It is free and available from the Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District at 753-9400, extension 400.
By Nancy Coverstone (ncstone@umext.maine.edu), University of Maine Extension Educator in Androscoggin and Sagadahoc Counties
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