The Swans of Cow Pond

Cathy Zhang ’26 & Lucia Zhang ’25

Christine Wu ’25

Returning from summer break, the Loomis Chaffee community was intrigued by the emergence of two swans in the Cow Pond. On closer inspection, many students were disappointed to discover that the swans were fake, wondering what their purpose was. Through an interview with Tim Dowd, the Grounds Supervisor of the Physical Plant, we discovered that while they are decorative, they are meant to scare away the Canadian geese from the Meadows. 

While visiting his family in Vermont over the summer, Tim noticed that his family’s neighbors were using decoy swans to keep the geese out. Inspired by their success, he found a supplier and added two swans– now named Thunder and Lightning– into the Cow Pond. Anchored to a wire at the bottom of the pond, the swans can move around to seem more life-like to the geese. Unfortunately, both have had their pinhole leaked, tipping them underside and forcing the Physical Plant to go out with a kayak to rescue them, patch the hole, and place them back into the pond.

When asked how well the swan decoys have worked, Tim said they “worked pretty good for a while” but sadly noted that the “geese aren’t too concerned about the swans anymore.” He explained that the geese were digging up the fields in the winter in addition to leaving feces everywhere, which was causing significant damage to the Meadows, where many sports teams practice in the fall and spring. Although noting that it wasn’t as big of a problem, Tim said that the geese also ate a lot of grass in the fields, nearly overgrazing them. 

In the past, Physical Plant has also tried using coyote decoys, dogs, and golf carts to deter geese. With the coyote decoys, Tim said that the Physical Plant “had to constantly move them,” which took a lot of time and energy. He has also tried hiring people to bring their specially trained Australian shepherds to chase and herd the geese. While this method appeared to work well, eliminating the geese was costly and time-intensive. In the winter, when there are hundreds of geese, Physical Plant usually drives a golf cart towards them occasionally to temporarily force them out of the pond.

After researching, we discovered a few methods that Physical Plant could use to see if geese will stop living in the Meadows. One option is to utilize a liquid repellent, which contains an ingredient called geese abhor, deterring them from approaching the area where this liquid is sprayed. The spray is safe if it is EPA-approved and has no foul odor (Esman, 2024). Although the visual swan decoys didn’t work, an audio decoy can be used by hanging a special bird chaser speaker on a nearby tree. Lastly, since the Australian shepherds seemed to work well to scare away the geese, a cheaper alternative could be asking all faculty with dogs if they have a dog that enjoys chasing animals and, if so, whether they would be willing to lend their dog to scare the geese away.

Although the Physical Plant seeks to remove the geese from the Meadows, the animals positively impact the environment at appropriate population densities. For example, they enrich the ecosystems around them with nutrients through their feces and help disperse seeds. Nonetheless, an abundance of Canadian geese can drive away native birds, overgraze the fields, and create excess feces in bodies of water like the Cow Pond, significantly declining water quality (Maslo & Lewis, 2023). Meanwhile, introducing swan decoys or another method into Cow Pond could nonetheless harm the environment by driving away a natural species of the area, lowering the ecosystem’s biodiversity. The Physical Plant will continue to work toward a solution for the geese, and in the meantime, the Loomis community can enjoy the swans in the pond.

References

 Clifford, G. C. (2020, May 24). 15 Tips on How to Get Rid of Geese Fast [Humanely]. World Birds.

https://worldbirds.com/how-to-get-rid-of-geese/ 

Esman, Ben. (2024, February 1). Frustrated with Nonstop Goose Poop by Your Pond? 4 Tips to End the

Madness. My Backyard Life. https://mybackyardlife.com/how-to-keep-geese-away-from-pond/ 

Maslo, B. and Lewis, C. (2023, October). Canada Goose Ecology and Impacts in New Jersey. New Jersey 

Agricultural Experiment Station. https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs1214/

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