2022 Goose Summary

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This was the most challenging year for our Goose Management Program. It was the tenth year of keeping daily observations.   The year started promising with few geese and successful harassment measures.  Then a family of five showed up and they stayed through the molt.  The past success has created unrealistic expectations and people were complaining about the geese not being forced off, while others complained about harassing them.  

The family was roosting by the club and left poop behind each morning.  Sometimes our volunteer team did not make it down early and the morning shift at the lake took notice.  We lost some volunteers from the negative comments directed at them.  All for a family of four (one had died).  People seemed to have forgotten that we used to have up to 70 geese on the lake!

The board has agreed in the past to a level of 8 geese before considering a roundup.  This was confirmed again.  The geese were kept on edge until late July when they could finally fly.  They got the message as their first full flight had them leave the lake and not come back until the winter, if at all.  

The typical fall foragers came through, but never stayed long.  All in all, this was the toughest year in our history of the management program.  We lost a few volunteers due to the complaints that were thrown at them almost daily.  

The light fall of 2020 did translate to a light spring in 2021.  Goose numbers in the single digits and no goslings on the lake.  The last spring visit was June 5.  A female goose with something on her neck stopped coming to the lake and may have died off the lake.  

On July 23, seven geese landed at Cupsaw.  This is very early and is more evidence that the molt is not as consistent as thought.  In Haverstraw, NY, I witnessed flying geese on July 15.  Looks like some gaggles are molting early and others late.  This shortens the molt length in our area down to three or four weeks.

I stopped daily tracking in October when the lake went down.  It actually went down twice this year due to an early November rain event.  Geese were not observed until New Year's Eve.  

2020 was the year of COVID-19.  The shutdowns caused a big increase in people at the club, on the water and on the waterfront properties.  Water-based harassment faced its own harassment as people were upset with the activity.  Attempts to explain the program fell on deaf ears as the people just did not want to see any harassment.  At one point, I got called from a suspicious homeowner when a neighbor reported that I was loitering in front of their house.  I had to send the timelapse I was taking to reassure the homeowner that nothing nefarious was going on.  

The extra crowds on the lake did help keep the population down.  I also suspect the lack of people in other areas (corporate parks, closed golf courses, etc.) gave geese new areas to hang out.  A pair of goslings moved up from the ponds, but were quickly chased back.  

The fall season was the quietest ever!  Only one recorded sighting of geese on the lake.  There were still a lot of closures and empty corporate buildings, so the geese had a larger range than usual and did not need to come to Cupsaw.

Goose activity started early in 2019.  There was ice on the lake until March 20.  The spring saw decent numbers of geese, but we did not have any goslings show up.  The lack of goslings kept the number of complaints low.  Harassment in the colder weather was considered part of the success in the spring.  On July 16, 7 geese came to the lake.  3 adults and 4 juveniles.  It is very odd to have geese show up this time of year as they would normally be molting (flightless) until late July.  They probably got chased out of their molt area, but left Cupsaw after a few days.

A few groups came through in the fall.  Toward the end of the year, five geese were trying to establish on the lake.  It is possible it is the family from 2018.  The lake had ice, on and off, until December 19 when it froze for the rest of the year.  

The lake was iced in until late February.  The geese did not arrive until March 20 and the numbers were consistently in the single digits.  The year was made more difficult when a family of 6 showed up at the end of May.  My absence for a few days allowed them to get comfortable.  Since 2017 had no geese, a few board members insisted we get another round up.  We stayed the course and despite an encore of the family at the end of June, they were gone before the molt.  The comments from some people began to grate with the people doing the goose control.  The poop patrol people were losing some motivation.

The fall was very light until Thanksgiving and then the chase began again.  There was ice on and off for the rest of the year.  

2017 was another light year for the ice.  The lake froze lightly for a few weeks in early February.  There was an odd event in March.  A Nor'Easter dumped about a foot of snow on the lake and it froze overnight.  Besides the odd weather, it was a textbook spring.  Low numbers of geese tried to establish and our resident family had no goslings.  There were two false reports of goslings, one from one of the people that is against the Goose Management Plan.  The geese did shift to roosting at the south dock as that is far from my launching point.

The fall was hampered by the lake lowering, but the geese did not come until November.  There were only light numbers and it was an easy situation.  2017 was one of the easiest years.  Ice covered the lake by mid December.

2016 had light ice cover over the winter and was ice free after February 25.  The geese showed up right away and it wasn't long until goslings appeared on the lake.  Overall goose numbers stayed low, but the family of geese were getting used to on-water harassment and stayed more on the land.  They eventually left through a southwest cove.

The fall chase was very light.  Very few goose sightings.  The lake froze on December 10, but two weeks later a group of 10 came by.  They were chased away, even though they were on the ice.

2015 saw another cold start to the year with ice covering the lake until April 5.  Our resident pair had another five goslings and were tough to move all spring.  They were last observed on June 28.  Goose families do not get harassed, but we are able to influence their location and work to move them into a southwest cove where they often leave the lake.  There was concern they would stay through molt, but they did not.  

The fall started light, but with the lake lowered, two groups tried to establish in November and December.  Harassment continued through the end of the year.  On water harassment was the only technique used after the summer.

2014 had ice cover the lake until early April.  Goose activity began in mid March with the geese walking on the ice and finding water in some shallow areas.  It was a tough spring that saw one of the four resident geese die.  Numbers were low until mid May when two families arrived on the lake.  Their arrival on the lake the same morning made us suspect a forced move the night before from a nearby location.

The geese with two goslings stayed until late June.  A new goose light seemed to help and fencing on private lawns was very effective for those properties.  The summer had no geese and the fall only saw light activity compared to prior years.  The lake froze at the end of the year and the geese left to follow the ice line south.

Goose chasing started in 2011 when I moved to Cupsaw Lake full time.  I did not keep records until midway through 2013.  Before records were kept, up to 70 geese were on Cupsaw.  The beach had to be cleaned of poop every morning.  The Board authorized a round up of geese and the population was temporarily reduced for the first summer.  By 2012, two to three dozen geese stayed through the molt and another round up was considered.  

Alan Fedeli brought together concerned parties and a compromise was reached.  This was memorialized in the 2012 Goose Management plan.  A program of harassment was begun and since the geese were not native to Cupsaw, the effort proved a success.  By 2013, an observation log was created to track the effectiveness of the new strategy and to prove to the doubters that this worked.  Cupsaw was still gettign up to 70 geese in the off season, but they were leaving suring the summer.