Developing a friendship with wild geese

Hi all!

So I'm a 21 guy who lives in Australia and just outside my backyard is a fairly large lagoon which is home to a vast variety of bird life. From Owls and Cockatoos to the Occasional Pelican and Black Swan there's definitely no shortage of our feathered friends. The lagoon, although technically not, is essentially a part of my backyard along with every other house around here.

Among the many inhabitants of the lagoon are a gaggle of, currently, 8 geese (numbers have decreased and increased over the years) I'm no expert but I believe they're Toulouse Geese? These geese have been living here for almost as long as I have!
Most people around here tend to ignore them as they often hiss when people attempt to get close. Occaisonally people with small children will stop and feed them bread but that isn't very often. Also as the lagoon happens to be a popular walking track with lots of dog walkers (some people let their dogs off the leash to chase birds even though signs clearly state not too) and has often been the unfortunate reason as to why the occaisonal gosling will go missing...
Over the past week I've began meeting them everyday, feeding them lettuce and sitting with them for a bit until they wander off to forage for more food. Already they seem to be getting more comfortable in my presence, no longer hissing, taking food from my hand and lap, nibbling my hand, touching me etc...

My question is am I inadvertently doing more harm than good by hanging out with them and developing a sort of trust? (If that is infact what I'm doing).

I think what you are doing is BEAUTIFUL... If I was where you are. I WOULD BE DOING SAME.
Most of all
Please do keep us updated as to how things are going with your adopted flock.

Thank you very much for the welcome and reply!

Will do!

I would not do this.Their wild,and geese get triggered quite easily,wild geese at that defiantly can get ticked off.You do not wnat them relying on humans for food,then they will begin going up to people who want absolutely nothing to do with them,and get kicked or even killed.

It's nice,but it can turn out bad.

Not only that,hand feeding can cause geese to get in extreme personal space,like nearly in your lap and face.

where i live they tell us not to feed the geese well the Canada geese that is because giving them food makes them fat and hurts there ability to get away from predators such as coyotes and foxes.

@itsasmallfarm
So what food do you put out for the fox and coyotes???


If you didn't get at least a mild chuckle, then today is a total failure.

cavemanrich said:

@itsasmallfarm
So what food do you put out for the fox and coyotes???

If you didn't get at least a mild chuckle, then today is a total failure.

Click to expand...

that is a good one.

TheTwoRoos said:

I would not do this.Their wild,and geese get triggered quite easily,wild geese at that defiantly can get ticked off.You do not wnat them relying on humans for food,then they will begin going up to people who want absolutely nothing to do with them,and get kicked or even killed.

It's nice,but it can turn out bad.

Not only that,hand feeding can cause geese to get in extreme personal space,like nearly in your lap and face.

Click to expand...

If they are Toulouse then they aren't wild they are someone dumped domestics. Granted they can get very much use to humans and think everyone maybe wanting to feed them which can cause trouble for humans and the geese[Dogs chasing and killing] But I think if I lived close to them I would want to make friends also. Just our nature I guess, But @rick95 just be aware that hand feeding can cause geese to get aggressive . I would also have to report anyone intentionally letting their dogs off leash to kill or chase the geese, which would be another argument against feeding them. They get use to human contact.