I grew up in Buckley, Washington. A lovely little logging town located on a river in the foothills of Mount Rainier.
I also played sports. Which meant that we would workout on the fields around campus. Each day we would run out to the field and mash through the goose poop during our warmups.
Goose poop? Yeah, you heard me correctly. You see, Canada geese (not Canadian geese. I don't know where they were born) loved grass to veg out on all day long. And since no one has invented the "goose diaper" they would deposit their waste all over the sporting fields.
Well, Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California finally has had enough. They were sick of their fields getting pooped on by anyone other than opposing teams (not really, that would be gross). But not much grosser than goose poop.
Anyway, back to the story, So Tamalpais got to thinking. How do you get rid of geese on a field? Their solution: coyotes.
No not real coyotes. That would solve anything. Picture that though. Instead of goose poop everywhere, you'd have all these coyotes running around trying to eat the kids on campus. It sounds like a very very bad horror movie.
But the rubber coyotes seem to be working. The birds are avoiding the fields.
This isn't the first time that rubber coyotes have been brought in to ward off birds. In January of this year, the minor-league baseball team, the
Dayton Dragons, were getting goose poop (and the geese that left said goose poop) in their stadium. They filled their stadium, Fifth Third Field, (what a dumb name) with rubber coyotes, and other predators.
I guess it is better to scare off the birds then too kill them. Not just for the obvious reasons of PETA knocking on your door, but geese are a flocking bird. If you scare away one, he'll tell his friends, and they too will leave. Geese give into peer pressure faster than a teenager.
It is July 1st! Happy Canada to our neighbors to the North.
