Canada geese are federally protected. This means that without a permit from Fish and Wildlife or the Department of Agriculture, you are not allowed to touch them, their eggs or their nests.

Most geese problems are several generations old. We have found that nearly all of our clients need an annual contract for at least the first year, in order to break the cycle and landing pattern.

Please note that for our "high" season, February-July, our client roster gets full and we turn business away.  If you are planning on possibly hiring us for this busy time, please be on our roster before February 15th, so we do not have to turn you away. 

Starting February until late April, geese pair off and start nesting and laying eggs. We recommend you obtain an egg-oiling permit from Fish & Wildlife sub-permitting Geese Police of VA/MD to treat the nests. We can help set you up with a permit for the next year. We treat the nests by oiling them, and we let the goose sit on her nest for 28 days, until her egg-laying cycle has passed. If we just chase her off the nest (illegal) or remove the nest, she will go and lay her eggs again - in the same place usually. We remove the nest and treated eggs after 30 days and chase her and her mate off well before June/July, when they molt (see below), as she now cannot lay any more eggs for the year. Our methods are approved by the Humane Society of the U.S. and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Mid-May, the eggs hatch, if the nests are not treated. You are stuck with whatever nests and hatches there until August, without an egg-oiling permit. Geese are very very aggressive during this time period.

In mid June/early July, after nesting, but before the goslings can fly, all adult geese will molt, meaning they lose their flight feathers, and will not regain them until August, at which point all geese will be flying again, and molt will be over. You may notice many other geese molting with the gosling families. It’s their family vacation time. By law, you cannot relocate these geese. The only other alternative to above paragraph (which we do not recommend) is to have a company with special permits come in and do a "gas", or “roundup”, where all molted (flightless) geese are captured, including goslings, and slaughtered or incinerated. You can see why we do things the way we do at Geese Police of VA/MD, in order for you to avoid that option.

In September/October, the migrating geese will fly over and through, and you could have hundreds of geese on your property for several days while they rest up to continue their flight.

Generally, from November - January are quieter months, if you have set into motion the harassment early on, as described above.

You can see the importance of having the geese harassment year-round before these critical times hit, so that the geese's landing patterns get "trained" to land elsewhere, hopefully in a field or marshland where they are not a nuisance and/or a danger to themselves and traffic.

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