Clarkstown Town Board members approved a $10,200 program on Tuesday for Canadian Geese control throughout the community. The contract with Thomas J. Maglaras of Nuisance Wildlife Control Agents is for a program to addle the eggs of Canadian Geese in the town’s parks. This program is in addition to one approved in July 2012 for trained dogs to chase the geese from the parks and other locations.
Clarkstown Superintendent of Recreation and Parks Jo Anne Pedersen said the combination of the two programs has made a difference.
“I have to tell you our parks you can walk in,” she said. “And that’s much more than before.”
Addling geese eggs interrupts the incubation process so they do not hatch but the eggs are left in the nest so the geese still care for them. If the eggs were removed, then the geese would lay more eggs. According to Pedersen, they typically produce four or five eggs at a time.
In 2012, the firm found 97 Canadian Geese nests in Clarkstown containing a total of 480 eggs at Lake DeForest, Congers Lake, Lake Lucille, Twin Ponds, the closed West Nyack landfill and along Klein Avenue and Old Nyack Turnpike. Pedersen said the number of nests has not changed dramatically from 2006 when there were 81.
As long as the geese can get access to green grass, she said they tend to stay in the same area.
“The problem is the geese don’t migrate south anymore,” she said.
Pedersen said in 1996 the town tried to get the geese to move from one of the parks so they relocated them to the former landfill, about three miles away. Within a week’s time, many of the geese found their way back to the park.
Nuisance Wildlife Control Agents will addle the eggs in late March and early April. The company is responsible for obtaining all necessary state and federal permits.
Throughout the year, Hudson Valley Wild Goose Chasers, Inc.of Nyack takes its trained canines to Rockland Lake State Park, Lake DeForest Reservoir and Swartout Lake two or three times a day to chase the geese. Wild Goose Chasers is being paid $1,973 monthly for 12 months or $23,676 to chase geese from Kings Park in Congers, Congers Memorial Park and Twin Ponds Park in Valley Cottage.
Town properties are not the only ones attractive to geese. The Clarkstown School Board also brought in three companies on a trial basis to rid the Clarkstown North and South high school and Felix Festa Middle School campuses of geese.
