ASBURY PARK PRESS | TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2008
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FOOLING FOWL: At night, the device projects a gentle, blinking
light, disrupting geese's sleep, causing them to go to another body of water.
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Device ends
wild goose
chases
By CHELSEA MICHELS
Toms River Bureau
BEACHWOOD— On a hot summer day, many residents look forward to heading to the beach for a refreshing dip in the cool waters of the Toms River.
Unless the beach is covered in goose droppings, which are not only an unsightly nuisance but also a possible host to bacteria.
The borough has switched to a new, environment-friendly method of ridding the Beachwood Beach of geese: solar-powered devices that chase them away.
After researching different options for clearing the borough's beach of geese, borough Councilwoman Katina L. Clark discovered water-based devices made by Away With Geese of Cincinnati.
The solar-powered units float in the water and at night project a gentle, blinking LED light every two seconds, which disrupts the sleep patterns of geese, causing them to move to another body of water. The company says that at dark move into the water to be safe from predators and to sleep.
Clark said the Borough Council missed the December deadline to sign a contact with Geese Chasers, a company that the town has used in the past that uses trained dogs to help eliminate Canada geese problems.
According to Clark, when towns bring in dogs to chase away geese, it must be done in February, before they mate and establish nesting. Dogs cannot be brought in between June and September.
Clark said annual contracts with Geese Chasers usually cost between $4,500 and $5,500, but the solar-powered units, each effective over 3.5 acres of water, cost about $700 with a guaranteed two-year life span.
"This is something a lot of municipalities have been going with," she said. "In the years past, we have had geese problems. Thank God we haven't started having any problems so far this year. We're trying to be proactive."
Two devices were installed June 20, and Clark said the borough has not heard any reaction from residents yet.
"There are other alternatives, such as chemicals and dogs, but these (Away With Geese units) are completely environmentally safe," she said. "The other important aspect is economics. This is going to save the borough probably about $8,500 for the two years."
Away With Geese also makes land units, and Clark said the borough is looking into getting some for Birch and Surf Park and the soccer fields.
On a recent sunny day, Stephen McHugh, 52, of Beach Avenue was at the beach, watching people splashing in the goose-free water.
"Why not (try something new) if it's saving the borough money and it works?" McHugh asked. "If they can save the dogs from doing it, sure. It's going to take a season to know for sure if it works though."
McHugh acknowledged that hiring a company to bring in dogs is more work and costs the borough more money.
"This is a lot more economical, and I'd say it's worth a shot," he said.
Tom Wells, owner of Away With Geese, said that some of the simplest products are the ones that work the best.
"We don't harm them (geese). We don't hurt them in any way. We just make them uncomfortable," said Wells, who has owned the company for three years. "Dogs can be efficient, but they are very, very expensive. We don't go away, we're just there. They are totally maintenance-free."
He said that geese are lazy birds that like to stay in well-maintained areas where predators cannot hide, such as beaches, golf courses and manicured residential yards.
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Justin Moore, 3, of South Toms River swims in the Toms River without fear of pollution from goose droppings now that a new device has rid the Beachwood Beach of Canada geese.
Below: The geese-free Beachwood Beach can be enjoyed by people again.
(STAFF PHOTOS: SHAWN HUBER)
Michael Lang (left), 5, and Justin Moore, 3, both of South Toms River, swim in the waters of Beachwood Beach, which has been plagued by Canada geese (and their droppings) for several summers. It is now goose-free thanks to a solar-powered device, placed in the water, that chases the birds away. (STAFF PHOTO: SHAWN HUBER)
How It Works
n It disrupts geese sleep patterns, causing them to move to another pond.
n The product floats and works at night, seven days a week.
n Each unit is effective over 3.5 acres of water.
n It is solar-powered; changing batteries and running electricity to the unit are unnecessary.
n It is a aintenance-free, environmentally "green" product; with no chemicals, it is harmless to geese.
Source: www.awaywithgeese.com |
Wells developed the idea several years ago, when he was at a convention in Las Vegas and blinking strobe lights were bothering his eyes. When a friend asked for help ridding his property of geese, Wells realized that perhaps creating something that bothered their eyes would force them to move to a new body of water.
The units, which have a yellow-orange blinking solar-powered light, are on a black base tethered to a cinder block that swings around in a 10-foot circle in the water.
"We've had a very good success rate," said Wells, adding that the lights, which gain solar power during the day and light up at dusk, look like someone lighting a cigarette to the human eye, but irritate a goose's sensitive eyes.
"In the daytime, it doesn't do anything, and it blinks when it turns dark. Beams of LED light come out on two sides."
Wells said the devices have been used at water treatment facilities, golf courses and residential properties. They are more successful in water because the land units are easy to steal, but in 2009, Wells said, his company will make major changes to the land model to make them more effective and less vulnerable to theft.
Maria Vernachio, 42, of Beacon Avenue also said trying something new is worthwhile.
"I don't think (the dogs were effective) because there's still geese droppings all over, but I think it's worth trying something else," said Vernachio, as her golden retrievers splashed in the water outside of the swimming beach perimeters.
She said last summer there was a large problem with goose excrement on the beach.
"(The new devices) are also cheap and do not require very much manpower," she said. "But with a dog you have to hire a company and have someone watch them. Also, the dogs can't be here all the time.
Chelsea Michels: (732) 557.5729 or cmichels@app.com
Geese flee from the light
Flashing beacons gave inventor a bright idea
BY JOHN ECKBERG | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
OCT. 22, 2006 The Canada geese that honk and chew their lives away on the golden ponds of suburbia aren't really all that much of a problem.
It's what they leave behind that drives golf pros, pond owners and office park superintendents crazy - up to four pounds of droppings per bird per day.
That's why earlier this year, Sayler Park resident and serial entrepreneur Thomas R. Wells came up with Away With Geese.
"I used to work trade shows for a company I owned and those flashing yellow lights on some booths drove me crazy," Wells said. "You'd try to look away but by the end of the show, you'd have a terrible headache."
That's when Wells' personal light bulb went off. Would a flashing yellow beacon do the same thing to geese? Drive them crazy? Drive them away?
While others smelled goose refuse, Wells sniffed something else: getting rid of geese and their green droppings might bring him a pile of greenbacks.
After a couple nights in a lawn chair watching geese go sleepy-bye (they scramble into lakes and ponds at night to avoid predators and then promptly fall asleep) and some trial and error, Wells developed a simple contraption that users say works better than any approach they've seen.
Chemical treatments at $270 a gallon are expensive and only last two weeks - less if it rains. Dogs work only as long as the dog isn't afraid to get wet. Sometimes the geese fly off, wait for the dog to go away and then return.
Wells' patent-protected Away With Geese works, users say. A floating, solar-powered LED light that is anchored in a bay of a big pond or the center of a smaller pond, it flashes a yellow beacon nightly right at goose-eye level and always - not frequently, not sometimes, not usually, but always - sends the honkers to ponds that have no such infernal beam.
Some are on the campus at Northern Kentucky University, and Ben Kuhn, head golf professional at Traditions Golf Club, a private golf club in Hebron, swears by Away With Geese.
"We put them out earlier this year and almost all the geese left," Kuhn said.
"Then we realized we had two nesting geese. As soon as their eggs hatched and the geese were big enough to fly, they left, too. We haven't seen any geese around here since."
This is the fourth business for Wells. He is the former owner of the former Fore and Aft, a popular Sayler Park floating restaurant that sank in 2005, long after Wells had sold it. More about the company is at www.awaywithgeese.com
He was co-owner of Embroidery Services, an Edgewood-based firm that he left in 1995, after being named one of a dozen Business Persons of the Year for the Commonwealth in 1994. Retirement beckoned but Wells found after about a year of five-day-a-week golf, retirement did not hold much allure.
He soon became chief executive of Accucounter, a Crestview Hills firm that counts and records shots fired by M-4 rifles. That's when the trade show yellow lights made such a big impression. He maintains an interest in that firm but devoted the past year to Away with Geese.
How big is the market? Giant.
John Neyer, chief executive of Neyer Management, the largest third-party real estate management firm in the region, said geese have become a problem for office complexes and there has been no solution. "They are a nuisance," he said. "The droppings are something that has to be attended to on a daily basis. Nothing we have tried has effectively gotten rid of them in long-term fashion."
Neyer manages 78 buildings and at 18 of those properties geese gather. He ordered one online as soon as he was told that the system exists.
"You don't want to be inhumane but you definitely want them someplace else," he said.
Corporations and office complexes with ponds, homeowner associations, parks, homes with ponds - all grapple with the problem of excessive geese, said Adam Hater, general manager of Jones Fish and Lake Management Inc.
"And the lawns there are just speckled with this manure," he said.
The Newtown-based fish farm and lake management company plans to sell Away With Geese in its 2007 catalog, which will be distributed to 60,000 clients. Will this light become a golden egg for goose-chasing Wells?
Hater has no doubt.
"I really think that sales are just going to take off," he said. |
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The Enquirer / Ernest Coleman
Thomas R. Wells holds an Away With Geese device at the Traditions Gold Course in Hebron. One of his inventions is in the pond behind him. Away With Geese chases geese from ponds, a common problem.
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Some help along the way
When entrepreneur Thomas R. Wells had a bright idea for a light to get rid of geese earlier this year, his notion sparked business for a handful of local companies.
Because Clubessentials LLC of Columbia Tusculum designs and maintains Web sites for private membership golf clubs, it was natural that Wells hired them to design his Web site - www.awaywithgeese.com.
"Tom is quite the entrepreneur," said Bob Ivers, vice president of operations for Clubessentials. "We sent a newsletter out to a few clients who have a geese problem. Congressional Country Club (in Bethesda, Md.) tried it and it worked."
Northern Kentucky University also bought some for their new ponds. Soon the geese were gone there, too. Other courses have had a similar experience: Biltmore Country Club in North Barrington, Ill.; Menifee Lakes Country Club in Menifee, Calif.; Country Club of Landfall, Wilmington, N.C.
Skip Parnell, owner of Parnell Hardware in Sayler Park, did some seat-of-the-pants design work on the gadget, too.
"I'm selling him the merchandise," Parnell said. "I came up with some pieces and suggested he get some closed foam to float it."
Wells has a garage workshop, where he's cut most of the black plastic piping that is used to hold pea-gravel ballast to keep the lights erect.
"I got a call from some guy in Milwaukee who has 500 geese on his property. He can't wait to get his lights," Wells said.
John Eckberg |
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The Enquirer / Ernest Coleman
Geese make their way across a small pond next to Thomas More College. Their droppings cause problems for caretakers, and they are difficult to chase away.
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