SANDPOINT, Idaho — A wild goose chase has begun.
On Wednesday, the city of Sandpoint launched its new off-leash dog program at City Beach. Going forward, seven permitted handlers and their dogs will be working in the park to deter geese from settling in the area.
“The geese here produce over 300 pounds of waste a day,” said Jason Welker, Sandpoint’s community planning and development director and the coordinator of the new program. “It’s disgusting.”
Goose waste can negatively affect water quality and contain pathogens that cause disease in humans. Coordinators of the program hope the presence of permitted dogs in the park will force the estimated 100 geese residing at City Beach to relocate.
The creation of the “Pend Oreille paw patrol” is the latest effort in the long history of Sandpoint’s waterfowl mitigation strategies.
Geese have been relocated to unpopulated areas and deterred with coyote decoys. Permitted hunters have slain animals and flocks have been euthanized en masse. No strategy to date has been able to eliminate the City Beach goose problem.
Sandpoint has employed dogs as waterfowl harassers in the past. In 2018, a professional handler with a trained dog was contracted by the city to patrol the park each morning before 9 a.m.
“The police chief said that at 9 o’clock all the geese were gone, and by 9:05 they were all back,” said Welker at Wednesday’s kickoff meeting. “The geese just learned that from 9 a.m. through the rest of the day, there was no threat to them.”
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