It’s Sunday morning, the air is cool and the geese of Lake Mary Nell float lazily on the water. This peace doesn’t last long though. The black-beaked birds are about to be disrupted by a new occupant: Border Collies.
The dogs dive into the water, eyes locked on their targets. In less than five minutes, the geese take to the sky in search of a Collie-free zone. The lake is empty, and the dogs are done for the day, set to return again tomorrow for another wild goose chase.
“They have been a problem on and off,” said Tom Flood, Elon University’s associate director of Physical Plant and director of landscaping and grounds. “Every year, the geese become residents. They’ve grown and grown and grown to be about 50 or 60 [in numbers] with increased droppings and grass destruction.” In response to the growing geese population, Elon has contracted with Goose Masters, a local company specializing in the control of these pesky birds. The company’s owners, Gwen and Kent Kuykendall, have been training Border collies for the past 20 years.
“It is a control mechanism with the use of Border Collies,” Gwen said. “Everything is very safe. Geese are federally protected. That’s why PETA endorses the use of Border Collies. [The dogs] are happy to merely stalk, like a cat stalking its prey.” After about two years of training, the dogs are ready to hit the field. Unlike other herding dogs, Border Collies have an approach that drives the birds into flight without disturbing other inhabitants.
“They know what to do,” said Timmy Hammer, Goose Master dog handler. “I just holler the directions at them, and they follow. It’s their natural instinct to herd these birds.”
And as long as there are geese, Goose Masters will come.
“Geese are very smart,” Flood said. “If you pulled up in a blue truck at the same time every day, they’ll fly away and come back. Goose Masters understands where they can park to have the element of surprise.”
Even though the Border Collies are the best available method of control, they don’t always work.
“It is the most successful approach of geese removal,” Gwen said. “That being said, it is still only a control method. We can’t guarantee that they’ll never see the birds again. We can guarantee that [the geese] will not hang around day in and day out.”
It can be especially difficult to remove the geese from Elon’s campus. Not only is there fine grass for the geese to munch on, but there are also generous students slipping the birds delicious snacks which is a luxury unique to their on-campus spot.
“[Human feeding] is the most difficult thing we run into,” Gwen said. “We cannot combat that.”
Elon has considered other options to remove the geese, including putting string around the water and letting the edges of the water grow into wild areas, but all to no avail. Administrators also tried Goose Masters’ herding approach with a dog of their own in years past, but couldn’t afford it.
“Now that we have a service that is close, it is the best choice,” Flood said. “Considering the costs from the damages of droppings and to reseed and grow grass, it’s really not going to cost that much.”
Despite the Elon administrations measures and repeated Goose Master visits, these geese are not leaving without a fight.
“They are survivors,” Gwen Kuykendall said. “They are going to figure out ways to counteract our actions. We need to be more determined to get them gone than they are to stay there. We need to out-determine them.”