Foul mess leads to fradulent water fowl

Tualatin’s Lake at the Commons swans may be fake, but the goose-poop problem is real

By Ed Johnson

The Times, Jan 21, 2010 (1 Reader comment)

Jaime Valdez / Times Newspapers

The city of Tualatin bought fake, plastic swans and put them in The Lake at the Commons to scare away messy Canada geese.

What do you do when you have too much goose poop? Seriously, Tualatin needs to know.

Bob Martin, parks maintenance supervisor, says the Canada goose population of the Lake at the Commons produces nearly five gallons of excrement a day, which mostly ends up on the pavement. The mess is problematic in various ways — smell, chemical, general sanitation, take your pick — so a parks staff person has to spend an hour a day cleaning it up. This costs quite a bit of money over time, Martin says, so the city has tried multiple methods of “goose abatement.”

The newest solution? A pair of fake plastic swans, $37 each, anchored to the bottom of the lake. Apparently, swans and geese are mortal enemies.

Internet reviewers give mixed results to the idea, and Martin says that in the two weeks the swans have been out, there has been a decline in the number of geese at the lake, though the animals are slowly starting to show back up, presumably as they figure out the plastic-swan fraud.

“I don’t know what the heck we’re going to do if this doesn’t work,” Martin says. “I guess it’s a great landing place for them.”

Another tactic in Tualatin’s war against geese has been “The Goose Buster” sound system, which emits electronic noises that emulate a goose’s distress signal. The units sell for around $850.

Martin says he had been researching ways to solve the geese problem on the Internet, and came across some evidence that plastic swans are effective. Other people out there have used fake alligator heads and trained dogs to combat the bothersome birds.

One part of the goose equation, Martin says, is that local folks like to feed the animals, which encourages them to come back. Martin says parks’ employees have found hidden bags of goose food in the area before.

“We encourage people not to feed them,” Martin says.

According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the number of geese Oregon sees during the winter has increased over the past few decades, with less traveling to California. The Willamette Valley and the Klamath Basin have the highest goose populations, but growing numbers of geese are using Oregon coastal areas, too.

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