Janesville man gets creative trying to keep geese out of park



JANESVILLE (WITI) -- As Spring slowly arrives in southeastern Wisconsin, people are starting to flock to the parks. However, geese are leaving something pretty unpleasant behind -- so a Janesville man created something meant to help clean up the park.

"Parks are supposed to be used for recreation. You can't even take your children for a picnic anywhere because of the goose droppings," Ray Ehle said.

Ehle decided to take matters into his own hands -- building coyotes out of plywood and placing them in different parts of the geese-populated park.

"A coyote being a natural predator seems to have heightened their threat level," Ehle said.

The idea came to Ehle after reading a newspaper article about an elementary school in Missouri using coyote cut outs to scare geese away.

"I thought why not? It's worth a try," Ehle said.

For less than $20, Ehle built eight coyotes over the past couple of months, the plan was to originally place them in March, but due to the long winter, Ehle put them up in early April.

"They are more active in the sky now. They are out searching for food sources," Ehle said.

And the coyotes look like they are searching for the geese -- at least from a distance.

"Geese are lovely when they are in the water you know," Ehle said.

Ehle says he plans on moving around the decoys every couple of days. He says that is because he wants to give the geese the impression that the coyotes are real and are on the hunt.