The Goose Whisperer

Posted by
Rosemary Drisdelle
Jul 19, 2007

Lots of urban landscapes are visited by huge flocks of migratory geese—some flocks will stay all year round where the climate is kind and there’s food available. The birds become a problem in places where their droppings make a terrible mess on lawns and some birds become territorial and aggressive towards people. Unless some effort is made to control them, year-round flocks tend to breed and grow continually larger—and continually more troublesome. These characteristics make geese in parks and on shorefront properties unpopular with some people, to say the least.

According to Martin Hof, in the Netherlands, it doesn’t have to be that way. People just don’t understand geese. Hof talks to geese, calms them, understands their family structure and emotional responses, and often saves them from being culled. Hof tells us that feeding geese teaches them to interact with people, which they wouldn’t normally do. Geese that hiss are simply stressed. They experience emotional trauma at the loss of family members and can suffer from loneliness.

Hof tells park officials how to keep the size of flocks under control, and finds new homes for geese that are unwanted. He’s gained notoriety as the “the Goose Whisperer,” and he’s popular with everyone, both geese and people. Read more about Martin Hof at International Herald Tribune (iht.com): “Move over Robert Redford: Here Comes the Goose Whisperer.”