Geese Chasers Ohio In The News - Geese Chasers™ Ohio

Canada goose control using trained border collies has been covered by Ohio newspapers, national outlets, and industry publications. Geese Chasers Ohio works across 34 counties spanning the Cleveland and Columbus regions under franchise owner Jason Helfer. The coverage below starts with reporting on our own Ohio crews, then moves outward to the national and trade stories that explain the method, followed by what all of it means for property owners here.

The Columbus Dispatch Rides Along With Our Team

Our Handlers and Dogs on the Job

In July 2026, Columbus Dispatch reporter Lilli Malone followed a Geese Chasers Ohio crew working a retention pond in Powell. The piece profiles Elle, a two year old border collie, and handler Tucker Helfer, our vice president of business development, moving a flock off the water without harming a bird. Franchise owner Jason Helfer, based in Cleveland and running the Ohio franchise since 2022, told the paper our dogs are trained to herd rather than hurt, and that the goal is simply to move geese toward better habitat. He was direct about where the company draws the line on euthanasia work, saying life is valuable and the balance of nature matters. The article notes our dogs work off leash and will swim into ponds to reach a flock, and that the service appears on PETA’s list of humane goose control options.

Read it: https://www.aol.com/articles/border-collies-helping-manage-ohios-100130000.html

How Ohio’s Goose Population Got This Large

The same article provides useful background from Gary Comer, a wildlife management supervisor with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Canada geese had been hunted to near absence in Ohio by the end of the Civil War. A federal restoration program in the 1950s released ten pairs in the state. Over generations, some birds stopped migrating altogether and became the Giant Canada goose now living in central Ohio year round, still protected despite no longer migrating. Comer points to the combination of manicured lawns, retention ponds, and almost no natural predators in developed areas as the reason numbers keep climbing. Sightings peak in March, April, and May while the birds raise young, and geese are flightless for part of the year while molting.

Read it: The Columbus Dispatch: Geese Chasers enlist border collies to curtail Ohio’s Canada geese

National Newspaper Coverage

The New York Times: Why Border Collies Work

An April 2023 interview with company founder Bob Young explains the mechanism behind the method. Geese respond to border collies because the dogs resemble arctic foxes, one of their few natural predators. Young said he had tried Australian shepherds and Labs early on and the geese ignored them. The article describes a twelve week tracking study finding that two chases kept geese off a property about two weeks, while four chases stretched that to roughly four weeks. It also notes geese pull grass up by the roots and leave droppings acidic enough to change soil pH, so damaged turf often returns as weeds.

Read it: The New York Times: His Business? Hiring and Managing Dogs to Chase Geese.

The Times of London: The Population Story

This UK article traces the Canada goose from roughly 250,000 birds in 1970 to about 3.5 million by 2010, crediting the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with the recovery. It makes the same point the Dispatch does from a different angle: corporate parks and their landscaped retention ponds built close to perfect goose habitat. It also notes droppings can carry bacteria including E. coli, which is why parks, ball fields, and lakefront properties usually act first.

Read it: The Times: Want to get rid of a goose? Take a gander at these border collies

Business and Trade Coverage

ROI-NJ: How Programs Are Scheduled

For facilities and property managers, this February 2023 profile is the most practical of the group. It reports that the number of ponds on a site shapes the plan more than total acreage does, and that service should be running by mid February through mid March, ahead of nesting. That timing matches what we see in Ohio, where the nesting window runs March through June.

Read it: ROI-NJ: Meet Bob Young, South Jersey man who stumbled into service

Golf Course Industry: The Turf Manager’s View

Written for golf course superintendents, this trade piece recaps the company’s growth from a single course in the late 1990s, where the founder’s first border collie cleared more than 200 geese in a week. The framing is what matters for Ohio clubs: superintendents treat goose damage as a turf and playability problem, not only a cleanup one.

Read it: Golf Course Industry: Geese Chasers opens in Northern Virginia

Broadcast and Video Features

Several segments show the dogs working, which tends to land better than any written description for managers deciding whether to start a program. CBS2 New York produced a piece on the dogs clearing geese in the city, and the In The Know series ran a feature on the company. View the CBS2 segment, or watch the In The Know feature. Additional coverage includes a segment on Nutley, New Jersey hiring Geese Chasers for its parks system and a Paws For Pets feature on a South Jersey news program.

What This Coverage Means for Ohio Properties

Three findings run through all of it. The birds here are resident rather than migratory, so they do not leave on their own. Federal protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Ohio state law rules out removal without permits, and ODNR is the agency authorized to issue them, including permits for nest destruction and egg addling. And results come from repetition, because geese only reassess a property after being moved along many times.

That shapes how the work runs. Handlers service properties seven days a week, multiple times a day, and the initial flock typically clears in four to twelve weeks. Daily maintenance then keeps new resident and migratory birds from settling in, since their first experience on the property is being moved off it. An on call option covers sites needing periodic clearing, with response inside an hour during service hours, and night runs handle roosting piles from birds arriving after dark.

Ohio geography concentrates the problem in predictable places. Lake Erie shoreline, inland reservoirs, and irrigated golf courses across Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Summit counties put open water next to short mowed turf, which is exactly what geese look for. Those sites usually need a more sustained effort than a dry inland property. Timing matters just as much: nesting season runs March through June, and once a nest hatches, goslings cannot fly for roughly 70 to 90 days and cannot legally be harmed or relocated, which commits the property for that whole stretch. Because geese are habitual nesters that return to sites where they successfully raised young, acting in late winter or early spring changes next year as much as this one.

Geese Chasers Ohio

Geese Chasers Ohio provides humane Canada goose control for commercial properties, golf courses and clubs, residential communities, and municipal sites across 34 counties covering the greater Cleveland and greater Columbus regions. Trained herding dogs working alongside a handler are what the Humane Society of the United States points to as the most effective way to convince geese a property is not safe. Evaluations are free, and every program is built around the property’s water features, layout, and how it gets used.