Canada geese always will be part of the Central Oregon landscape, wildlife officials said.

Right now, there’s just too many of them.

But officials are launching additional efforts to bring the numbers of Canada geese down, to keep flocks from denuding parks and lawns and leaving their droppings everywhere.

“We don’t have the concentration of resident Canada geese that cause problems … anywhere, except in Central Oregon,” said Mike Slater, the district supervisor with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services department.

To help, the district wildlife office recently brought a biologist on board to focus exclusively on the goose problem, Slater said. Previously, other biologists handled complaints about geese on top of other duties.

Although the biologist was hired recently, wildlife specialists have already devoted more than a month to goose control in Deschutes County.

At several Bend parks and at Black Butte Ranch, geese looking for a handout get an oral contraceptive from wildlife specialists. The feeding began in late February and could continue through May, because geese must eat the bait daily during breeding season for it to be effective.

Central Oregon is the only place in the state where the birds are getting birth control, Slater said, and it was one of the locations where the contraceptive was tested on geese in 2004.

The district wildlife office is also about halfway through a project to track Canada geese in Central Oregon that will help guide management decisions, he said.

Geese have become such a problem that the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will review a proposal April 18 to allow landowners to destroy resident Canada geese nests and eggs.

Slater said the contraceptive bait is just one tool, but it can be useful in the right setting.

He said the bait is likely to be effective in Bend parks and Black Butte Ranch because geese tend to nest and feed in those areas.

He estimated that a few hundred geese were eating the bait, manufactured under the name OvoControl G.

OvoControl G, produced by the California-based company Innolytics LLC, is pellet-form bait that contains nicarbazin. Nicarbazin is a substance that was originally used to treat intestinal parasites in broiler chickens, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Web site.

Nicarbazin also prevents the formation of embryos inside eggs laid by treated birds, according to the Web site.

A 2004 field study — which was conducted partially in Bend and Black Butte Ranch — showed that only about half the eggs laid by Canada geese treated with nicarbazin bait actually hatched, the Web site reported.

‘Hopeful’

Beginning last year, the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District and the resort added birth control to their arsenals to manage the birds. Officials in both locations said it seems to be working.

“I’m hopeful that it will be a viable means (of control),” said Paul Stell, Bend Metro Park and Recreation District natural resources manager. “(It’s) certainly the most humane way to take care of geese.”

Stell and Loy Helmly, Black Butte Ranch general manager, said that wildlife officials have also rounded up and relocated geese.

In recent years, officials found that relocation only works on juvenile birds, because the adults fly back. Juvenile birds trapped in Drake Park and relocated to Summer Lake have stayed there, Stell said, judging from bands returned by hunters.

In the fall, Stell said, the park district is likely to use a repellent that makes the grass distasteful at a few riverside parks.

The district will apply the repellent when it stops watering the grass because it’s expensive and washes off.

Helmly said Black Butte Ranch has used dogs, noisemakers and lights to chase the geese away from the golf courses and hired specialists to oil eggs, which suffocates the chicks inside.

But geese chased away from one area simply settle in another, and egg oiling is very labor-intensive — provided you can even get to the nest.

Slater said there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the geese problem.

“We’re keeping all the options on the table,” he said. “It really has to be matched to the site, and even within the site.”

He said the monitoring effort, where wildlife specialists banded several adult geese to track various flocks, has indicated that the birth control being used at Black Butte Ranch and in Bend could benefit other communities within Central Oregon.

Geese in Drake Park, for instance, appear to be the same ones causing problems in Redmond and Sisters, Slater said. So keeping a lid on the population in the park would help all three communities.

But the geese in Bend parks don’t seem to be the same ones at Black Butte Ranch. Geese tend to stick close to their nests during breeding season. Furthermore, the birds at the resort are more skittish.

“Their behavior will give us some clues on what non-lethal methods to use,” Slater said. “How many geese come running to you like they’re looking for their bread handout? How many take off at the sight of you?”

Though the monitoring project will draw to a close by fall, Slater said managing geese will be an ongoing, multi-year effort.

Both Helmly and Stell said they want to manage the birds, not eliminate them.

Helmly would be happy, he said, if the birds stuck to meadows and lakes set aside for wildlife, away from the golf courses.

“They are beautiful birds, and they are certainly part of the scenery of the Pacific Northwest,” he said.

Stell agreed that Canada geese are, in some ways, an important presence.

“Geese are a fundamental part of the Drake Park experience, and we understand that,” he said. “There will always be geese on Mirror Pond. But we’ve got too darn many of them.”

To comment

• The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is considering a proposal to allow landowners to destroy the nests and eggs of resident Canada geese if the animals pose a threat to public health or cause property damage. It would not apply to migratory birds.

• If approved, the new rules would apply only inside incorporated cities and urban growth boundaries, golf courses, parks or other recreational areas.

• To comment on the proposal, e-mail ODFW.Comments@state.or.us or mail comments to Wildlife Division, 3406 Cherry Ave. N.E., Salem, OR 97303. The public may also testify in person at the Aug. 9 meeting of the commission in Salem, when the commission will consider adopting the rules.