Selectmen OK Contract To Keep Geese out of Mead Park

Town officials on Tuesday approved a $19,500 contract with a Wilton-based company that comes to Mead Park to haze Canada geese and destroy their eggs so they won’t try to nest there.

New Canaan has hired Geese Relief LLC for its “goose control” program since about 2012, according to John Howe, parks superintendent with the town’s Department of Public Works.

No other company in the area does the work, he told the Board of Selectmen during their regular meeting.

“What they basically do is harass the geese but humanely, they never touch them, the dogs never touch them,” he said during the meeting, held via videoconference. “They also do the addling of the eggs, which is something we’ve been doing for almost 30 years in town. It’s a PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals]-approved of the approach of addling the eggs. There are not any more babies being born on the island.”

Egg “addling” involves moving a mother goose off her nest, testing eggs to ensure they’re not so far developed that addling them will lead to deformed geese, then if they qualify, coating the egg in oil to seal its air sac. If a female goose is not successful in her reproduction, she will nest elsewhere in the future. Geese also will not stay in an area patrolled by border collies. The Geese Relief workers kayak out to the island at Mead Pond to destroy the eggs there.

New Canaan Baseball used to pay for a company to come to Mead during its season to shoo away geese “just enough that they would leave for the time being,” Howe said, but that program wasn’t effective because the birds would simply come back.

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 to approve the contract.

Williams said it’s his “favorite annual budget item.”

The selectmen asked how many dogs are used (two to four), how long the company has been coming to Mead (about eight years) and whether that’s the only place the geese are harassed and eggs addled.

Howe said the Recreation Department uses the company to scare off geese during the swimming season at Kiwanis Park. A program such as the one in place at Mead would cost about $20,000 per-property elsewhere in New Canaan, Howe said.

“The main reason we key on Mead is with the pond is that’s a nesting area for them,” he said. “On the other areas, the geese are out there but they won’t stay. They’re only there to eat some grass and move on. They need water to nest.”