![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serenissimaAP: 'Goose Whisperer' bonds with park birds - Yahoo! News
I think the most important point of this article is that the more humane method of controlling the geese population is just as cheap as the conventional method.
A few months ago, the large park across the street from where I work had some people with shelties or border collies (are those the same thing?) chase away the geese from the pond, and the geese stayed away for several days, but the dogs were only there for one week, and the geese are back now.
[..snippage..]
At age 23, Martin Hof has developed an unusual approach to managing urban geese populations that is gaining adherents in the animal-friendly Netherlands — the first country in the world with an animal rights party in parliament.
"It's all about respect for the geese," he says.
The main problem at the Hof van Delft and most parks is that the birds have been allowed to overbreed and are clashing with the humans whose territory they share. But rather than destroying them, Hof finds new homes for the geese, dividing them along family lines to reduce the trauma of the move.
On the other side of the equation, he works with the humans who consider the geese as either pets or pests. That means discouraging feeding the birds and educating city workers on preventing the animals from overbreeding in the first place.
[..snippage..]
Gerard Zwart of the Amsterdam's public health agency, which has hired Hof's company for several projects, says the city has been so influenced by his thinking it plans to rename its "Vermin Control Service" to the "Nature Management Service."
The cost of using Hof's service is about the same as the old eradication program, he says. A typical job of relocating 30 geese would be about $2,000-$3,000.
[..snippage..]
I think the most important point of this article is that the more humane method of controlling the geese population is just as cheap as the conventional method.
A few months ago, the large park across the street from where I work had some people with shelties or border collies (are those the same thing?) chase away the geese from the pond, and the geese stayed away for several days, but the dogs were only there for one week, and the geese are back now.