In the Rietlanden district in Emmen, they wonder where the nightly bangs come from. But there are more issues at play in the apparently quiet neighborhood.
Nocturnal banging. Anyone who talks to you about it in the Emmen district of De Rietlanden has heard it. The few who have never heard it say they are a good sleeper. “I think it’s fireworks,” says Laura Gerrits. In the Facebook group I love Emmen there is a lot of speculation about the origin of the explosions: there is pile driving, they are fireworks, they are illegal cannons used to scare away geese.
Fireworks or a hunter?
The three ladies who stroll through the neighborhood with a boomer on a leash – “We are the boomer club” – are puzzled. “It must be fireworks.”
Fireworks? Or a hunter? “I heard it recently too. I thought: can you hunt now?”
They do agree on one thing. “It comes from the direction of the Nieuw-Amsterdamsestraat.”
poop bag
The suggestion that it concerns farmers chasing away geese does not immediately seem very likely to the ladies, if they are very honest.
Geese family thinned out
The geese family was thinned out two years ago. The municipality is now involved in nest management, explains Stefanie Schipper of the municipality of Emmen. We check every year the entire area around the small and large Rietplas on nests. If there is indeed a nest, we treat the eggs so that they do not hatch. To limit the nuisance of the geese, we try to keep the geese in one place, as far as possible, by means of fences and extra planting. This should, for example, reduce goose droppings on the sidewalk. The sidewalk is also thoroughly cleaned a few times a year.”
But speaking of geese… They still know a few stories about that. Not about the Egyptian geese (actually ducks) that occasionally fly over the water-rich district in their hundreds at once, but about the twenty or so greylag geese that waddle through the district. “I think it’s strange: I always have to take a bag with me to clean up my dog’s poop, but you can’t cross the street here without stepping in the goose poop. I certainly don’t venture on the lawns,” said one of the three.
One of the other ladies of the boomer club adds: “Sometimes they walk in the middle of the street. Don’t think they’re going to step aside.”
“They poop every few minutes.”
“The municipality has placed fences along the ponds, but they don’t care about that either.”
“Go and have a look on the bridge ahead.”
Indeed, further down the Spechtenveld, a couple of tame geese (also called soup geese) are grazing. “It’s a family,” says a resident of the Watersnip. “They live here, you will never get them out.”
Subcutaneous war
The geese unintentionally cause a subcutaneous war between dog owners and residents of the Watersnip who appreciate their unobstructed view. A stream runs behind the houses. They look out on the street.
But between the property boundary and the water there is still a strip of municipal land that is gratefully used by geese unconcernedly defecating on the assembly line and by dog owners. “Now our neighbors have placed a knee-high fence on one side and on the other. Dog owners have complained about this to the municipality because those fences are said to be life-threatening. The neighbors should actually remove the fences now.”
Neighbor Lisette Vogelvanger also knows the group of geese. “There is one who was very aggressive. He always walked alone.”
According to the resident of the Watersnip, this goose was injured. She’s not surprised. “They just walk down the street. Before you know it you have one under the car.”
Before we forget: do they also hear bangs at the Snipe? “Certainly! I think it’s against the Egyptian geese. They occasionally fly over here in the hundreds at the same time.”
Just outside the district, in a yard on the Verlengde Herendijk where half a dozen men remove weeds from between the tiles, they say that the farmer of the plot between Verlengde Herendijk and the Puurwaterfabriek Emmen blasts a carbide cannon to scare away crows and geese .
Hunting and chasing
The starting point of the policy in the province of Drenthe is to offer geese as much rest as possible in the winter period and to place more emphasis on limiting agricultural damage in the summer period. In both periods, the general starting point of the policy applies: prevention and deterrence take precedence over shooting.