Lily Lake Summerhaven Association  Lilly Lake, Wisconsin

Rev. 16-May-2012

Welcome Message from the President

Mike Adam, President, Lily Lake Summerhaven Association, a voluntary organization of Lilly Lake residents whose purposes include community building, Neighborhood Watch, and communication and presentation of issues affecting the community to the proper authorities.

Note: The Association is most grateful to NCast Corporation for the donation of server space and technical support for this Web site.

Special Announcements:

• Update on last year's thefts: As of May 1, we know that a father-son-uncle theft ring has been caught and sentenced to long (20+ years for the father) prison sentences. The State is leaning on the son to provide more detail on ring operation in order to reduce his own prison time. In each theft, the ring would stay under the $2500 felony theft limit. When caught however, they had about $40,000 worth of stolen goods in a garage. The uncle came from the West Coast and stole his way across the country. The serial # of one item he had matched an item stolen in Utah. One local person they stole from will not get his log splitter back (it's gone) nor will he get restitution.
• May 19 at 10 AM, Wheatland Town Hall: spring meeting of the Summerhaven Association.
  
• Hazardous Waste Disposal:
  September 8, Pleasant Prairie Municipal Center (8600 Green Bay Rd), 8 AM to 1 PM
  Hazardous waste includes gasoline, herbicides, pesticides, oil-based paints, stains, thinners, solvents, poisons, batteries, CFLs, moth balls, fertilizers. Not accepted: biological waste, commercial waste, explosive or radioactive waste, Freon, tires, appliances, latex paint.
  
• Free fishing weekend: June 2-3. Anyone, adult or child, can fish without a license the whole weekend.
  
• Jason Young (jason.ees@gmail.com) has set up a Neighborhood Watch blog at www.lilylakewatch.wordpress.com. Check it out!
  NOTE: The Summerhaven Association presents this information as a public service to our membership. The Board and the Association are not sponsoring this blog and do not control any of the information that appears on it.
• Lily Lake residents serving in the armed forces:
  - Nicholas Davis, son of Maria Davis, is in Marine boot camp.
  
• If you would like to contact the property tax committee, email them at a special email address they set up: citizens4fairtaxes@gmail.com.
• If you would like to get a copy of the petition they created, click Property Tax Petition.
• See the agenda for the next Town Board meeting.

Board Members

President	Mike Adam 537-2413 balooadam@yahoo.com 7126 327th Ave
First Vice President	Marilyn Magnuski 537-4750 mjmagnuski@gmail.com 7723 334th Avenue
Second Vice President	Eileen Mullins 537-2752 mmull72133@aol.com 7654 Lily Lake Road
Secretary	Pat Scannell 537-4408 33260 80th St
Treasurer	Jillian Verstrate (unlisted) 7634 Lily Lake Rd Mailing address: P.O. Box 763 New Munster, WI 53152

Block Captains

If you cannot reach your block captain and you want to discuss something urgent, please call one of the Board members.

Highlights of the August 27, 2011 Meeting

The following highlights present the main topics and issues covered during the meeting. The highlights summarize the main ideas and are not meant to be a complete verbatim transcript of the whole meeting.

DAN HIRCHERT (USDA WILDLIFE SERVICES): GUIDELINES FOR CANADA GOOSE DAMAGE MANAGEMENT IN WISCONSIN
Dan Hirchert from USDA Wildlife Services presented a slide show about management of goose problems. The USDA gets involved with geese because they, like deer, can damage crops.

Two populations of geese: migrants and residents (Giants)
Migrants pass through our area only for short time when they migrate from Hudson Bay to southern Illinois and back again. They do not breed here.

Residents (Giants) migrate very little (only when everything here freezes). They are very productive, averaging 5 eggs per nest. They live 20 years, are adaptable, don't have many native predators, and weigh up to 15 lbs.

Damage: crops, airplanes, park areas, landscapes, water bodies, attacks on people
Resident geese can produce major crop damage, and they threaten safety near airports. E.g., in 1995, an AWACS plane flew into a flock of geese; the resulting crash killed all 24 military personnel on board.

In urban areas, they can cause property damage, decimate vegetation, contaminate water bodies, and increase erosion. They can make such a mess that people stop using parks. They are also aggressive and will charge children who are holding food or adults who surprise them while they are nesting. During their molting period (late June) when they are unable to fly, they can cause traffic accidents because they walk everywhere, including in roadways. They may create predator-proof nests in high places such as roofs. If they succeed in raising a brood somewhere, they return to the same place, and their young learn to return to the same place.

Abatement: scare away and reduce populations, educate the public
You can manage goose concentrations with various techniques: propane cannons, pyrotechnics, flagging, fencing, and increased hunting. Most of these techniques are not usable in urban areas.

Hunting laws allow high bag limits (usually 5/day) before the migrants arrive. Hunting has helped manage the exploding resident goose population. Sixty to seventy years ago, it was thought that resident geese were extinct. In 1970, the DNR estimated there were 1600 resident geese in the state. Now there are probably 155,000. The breeding population is increasing.

Education is important. People should not feed the geese. Local ordinances can help enforce that idea. If you notice birds starting to congregate, try to disperse them because they act as decoys and attract more birds.

Non-lethal abatement methods include scare devices (like blow-up figures that inflate on a timer), trained dogs, pyrotechnics, repellents, and habitat alteration. If you discourage them in one place, they will go to another nearby area.

They like a smooth transition from water to grass. So anything you can do to break up that transition, like putting a band of rocks along the shoreline, can help discourage them. Fences (plain and electric), string grids, and big plants next to the shore are other methods. For small ponds, stringing fishing line at 20-ft intervals interferes with their ability to land in the water.

Because they are so adaptable, you may have to change your disruption techniques from time to time.

Predators: skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes
Skunks, raccoons, foxes, and coyotes normally don't take on an adult goose, but they disrupt nests and will kill juvenile birds for food. One area that had resident foxes stopped having any trouble with geese because the foxes took out all the young birds.

Protected by treaty
Geese are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. You need a federal permit to take eggs or birds.

Population management: reduce breeding, increase mortality
It is our local decision what we'd like to do about the geese. Then we apply for the permit.

Spraying 100% corn oil on the eggs suffocates the baby geese. However, you need a permit to do this, and you need to check for new eggs that the adults might produce. By adding dye to the spray and rechecking the nest, you can see any new unsprayed eggs. If you break the eggs during the adults' fertile period, they'll just produce replacement eggs. They sit on the nests for 28 days. They're fertile for roughly 25 days of that time.

Addling (shaking) the eggs is another option, but you have to shake for a long time, and you need a permit.

Nests are hard to find. Geese love islands (for their protection) and floating bogs. They can nest under bushes and trees. And you may be attacked as you approach the nest.

2-year process to remove geese: test for contaminants, then take birds away
Removing geese takes 2 years. The first year, the USDA collects 7 birds and tests them for PCBs, mercury, lead, and pesticides. The 25 contaminant tests take a long time. The collection takes place near the end of June when the geese are molting and can't fly.

If the birds test clean (so far, only one community has tested high for PCBs), the following year the USDA harvests the agreed-upon number of birds. It is wise to leave a few birds for goose lovers to enjoy so that the community does not become divided between goose lovers and goose haters.

The birds are handled, caged, and euthanized humanely. They are sent to a licensed poultry processor, who turns the meat into gooseburger for food pantries. Smaller birds are donated to animal sanctuaries for food. So far, 1600 geese have been pantried or given to Native Americans for food, and 1800 geese have been used for animal feed.

Effectiveness: manage the big adults to allow other options to work
If you reduce the number of big adults, other less drastic options may suffice to manage the geese in subsequent years. One community hasn't contacted the USDA in 5 years after their first removal. When you have a smaller population of geese, you attract fewer migrants because there are fewer decoys.

Summary of actions
1. Reduce food and habitat.
2. Time your actions: act when the geese are nesting and flightless. That's a roughly 3-week period in June.
3. Solicit neighborhood involvement.
4. Work with law enforcement.
5. Reduce geese to tolerable levels, but don't eliminate all geese.
6. Be proactive. Don't wait until the situation is out of control. If you have a few geese now, you'll have more later.

Costs: $2000 and $2000
Dan has found a lower-cost lab. So tests for contaminants now run $2000 instead of $4000. Next year, it will cost roughly $2000 to remove some birds. There is some grant money that may help defray the cost.

Disturb the nests right now
The geese are already nesting and probably sitting on eggs. This is the time to disturb the nests.

Dan Hirchert can be reached at 1-800-433-0663. He will collect the 7 geese to test for contaminants and apply for a grant. He'll also let Ron Vollmer know when he comes so that Ardie can take pictures for the web site.

Copyright © 2011 Lily Lake Summerhaven Association. All rights reserved.
Lilly Lake (Wisconsin)
Web master: Marilyn Magnuski, 262-537-4750, mjmagnuski@gmail.com