San Jose State Deploys Plastic Coyotes to Protect Practice Fields From Geese

San Jose State University has deployed a rather non-traditional security team to protect the football program's grass turf practice fields. 

According to CBS News, groundskeepers at the school have been dealing with flocks of geese that eat the grass turf and leave behind quite a mess. 

"It's never been as bad as it's been, really, the last couple of years," said SJSU athletic director Jeff Konya. "I'm not sure if it's a new migration pattern or where these geese are coming from, but there's certainly been an uptick in geese and geese offerings.

Assistant athletic director of football operations Garrett Wolfe said staff were regularly spending more than two hours picking up goose poop. 

"What we didn't want to do is have to come out here before every practice and pick up seven black trash bags full of geese poop by hand," Wolfe recalled. "I walked back into the office after practice and said, 'I am never doing that again.'"

Wolfe researched a number of mitigation solutions, including motion-activated lasers, but in the end opted for a low-tech, less-expensive fix — plastic coyotes. 

Wolfe says the plastic predators have worked for the most part. 

"I think it just made it a little bit more manageable to maintain the cleanliness of the field," he said. "The ability to just come out and clean up small spaces vs. two 100-yard football fields obviously takes way less time."

The players have appreciated the addition as well. 

"It's nice not to have to worry about landing in geese crap when you're diving for a ball," said Nick Nash, who led the team in touchdowns last year. "It's much more than having to worry about having to fall in geese poop. It's a lot, like, mental. It's just nice to have a coach that really cares about keeping our space clean. [It's] clean enough where we don't have to worry about falling in geese crap every time we're playing out here. It's just a big boost of confidence in our program."

SJSU's athletic department originally purchased four coyotes, but "two of them mysteriously went missing," according to Wolfe.

"[The plastic coyotes have] kind of been a bit of a rallying cry, both in the staff room and within the team," Wolfe said. "Something as little as putting a coyote out every night saves you a couple of hours a day. There's unique challenges here, and this was one of them. So we just found a unique solution."