After trying around a dozen ways to remove geese that have caused damage to the greens at Ashton Hills Golf Course, without killing the birds, golf course management has opted to try one more way.

Bryan Raines, co-owner of Ashton Hills, went in front of the Covington City Council Monday to ask permission to fire weapons in the city, and use a permit granted to the course by the Department of Natural Resources to shoot and terminate 10 geese.

Social media backlash on a story written on the permit to kill the geese on The Covington News’ Facebook page and other sites that used The News’ story picked up by the Associated Press has been impassionate on the side of the geese.

That outcry led the USDA to contact Raines and present a new method to relocate the birds.

When Elizabeth Miller, of the USDA’s wildlife service division, asked Raines if he was interested in a non-lethal way to take care of the geese, he quickly said yes. Then when she told him about relocating the geese, he said that Ashton Hills tried that already and it didn’t work.

Then she laid out her plan.

The geese will have their flight feathers clipped, after molting season, and be taken more than 100 miles away. This way, by the maximum of three months it takes the flight feathers to grow back, and enable the geese to fly, they should be adjusted to a new home.

“Basically what it does, is it keeps them grounded for three months, and puts them in a location for a longer period of time,” Raines said. “They become acclimated to their new home and are less likely to come back.”

The cost of the relocation program, Miller said, was around $1,500 depending on how long it takes to clip the bird’s feathers.

Raines and a resident of Covington Place then came up with the idea to let the geese’s new fan club help keep the birds alive. The homeowner, who lives in a subdivision near Ashton Hills Golf Course, volunteered to start a Go Fund Me account to raise money for the geese.

The account at https://www.gofundme.com/vwvtbvvj has a goal of $2,500 and a time limit. Money raised by the account will go toward relocating the birds, and excess funds raised will be donated the Newton County Humane Society.

“We have a very limited window,” Raines said. “If they’re going to fund it, it has to be within three or four weeks, because we’re going to start getting back into the migrating pattern, when we get a lot more birds. We get 50-70 in May and June and we’ll have no idea who the 12 resident geese are then.”

To read our original story on the Ashton Hills geese, click here.