For years, Meridian High School has endured a rather strange problem. Most of the time, when one hears about issues in schools, they think of misbehaving students, or bad teachers. But Meridian’s problem is much more avian in nature.
Since the new high school finished construction, geese have taken the opportunity to nest on the fifth floor patio. Their honking creates quite the disturbance for students, and prevents people from going outside, due to the geese’s territorial nature.
“They can be very mean if they feel like somebody’s in their space. So obviously, we don’t want students out there if there’s aggressive animals. Additionally, some kids like to eat lunch outside in the spring, and that’s not hygienic given that [geese] create a lot of feces,” Ms. Hillary McDuff explained.
Over the past year, Ms. McDuff has obtained a pet project of sorts. She spends her spare time trying to find new ways to prevent geese from nesting on the fifth floor, and has found a few innovative solutions.
“Our goal this year was to keep it open for students, and to have the geese choose to nest in someplace else… So that’s why you might see the Border Collie pictures and the skeleton and the Husky stuffed animal and then the big fox stuffed animal that was there. I brought in some dog hair from my house because we are really trying to encourage them to nest in a better spot,” she said.
This was not Ms. McDuff’s only attempted solution.
Despite all of the issues that the geese have caused, Ms. McDuff does feel like there have been a couple benefits.
“The whole staff kind of got into it. We got the Husky from MEH, Ms. Rafique brought up the ‘scarecrow’[skeleton]. I went out a few mornings, to try and shoo them away… There’s a few mornings I was out there barking at them, believe it or not,” she said.
Thankfully, these solutions proved effective.
“They nested in a spot where our students could still use this space, or they didn’t nest in a spot where students would have interactions with them that were unnecessary… But they are migratory. So they do return so I wouldn’t be surprised if they come back next year. But I think we learned a lot this year in how to help them,” Ms. McDuff said.
Because the geese may come back next year, it is important for students to know what to do if they see one on the patio. The most important thing to do is not to go near the geese, or even out on the patio. Secondly, notify a teacher.
“All the teachers know that this is a pet project I’ve taken on. And we can use some of the methods that were shared with us to encourage them elsewhere.”
