MARS HILL – Canada geese are a wondrous sight as they migrate each fall and spring across Aroostook County in their trademark V formation.

But when some decide to stop off along the way and take up residence, they become a problem for town officials.

That’s what has happened in Mars Hill, where three or four pairs of nesting geese have taken up residence in Prestile Stream, just above the dam and next to the town’s waterfront park.

“Last year, there was so much dropping [in the park] that you had to watch your step every step you took,” Mars Hill Town Manager Ray Mersereau said Tuesday.

The problem was similar in Fort Fairfield, where defecating geese last year made use of a picnic area called Puddledock almost impossible.

“Nobody uses it,” Fort Fairfield Town Manager Dan Foster said Tuesday. “It’s a shame.”

According to Rich Hoppe, regional wildlife biologist for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Ashland, the problems faced by the two towns are similar. By creating attractive parks for residents, the towns also created attractive sites for the geese.

The lush, green, well-fertilized and mowed lawns are the preferred food for the birds.

“It’s the most nutritious,” Hoppe said “It’s prime food: nice, fertile, cut grass.”

The fact that the parks in both towns also are along waterways that make good habitat well protected from predators makes them that much more attractive to the geese.

And when residents decide to feed the birds, the problem is compounded.

“Once they get tuned in on that, what a meal,” Hoppe said.

The warmer, milder winters also are prompting some geese to take up residence in places they might not have previously, he said. Finding ideal conditions without having to fly as far is very attractive to the migrating birds.

In Fort Fairfield last year, there were as many as 50 to 100 geese in the area near Puddledock all summer long, said Foster, who added that the birds “were all over the place.”

Four years ago, he didn’t believe there were any.

The problem, Foster said, is that the waterway popular with the geese also is connected to the town’s reservoir. Because of that, town officials were afraid that waste from the birds could contaminate the town’s drinking water.

This year, the town took dramatic action.

The geese are federally protected, but officials got permission to shoot some. Since early March, eight or nine have been killed.

The town also got permission from the Department of Agriculture to saddle eggs that were found on nests. The process essentially requires that the yoke inside the eggs be shaken in some manner so that the eggs don’t develop and hatch.

So far, eggs in two nests have been addled, and town officials haven’t seen any geese in the Puddledock area this year.

The town also has put fencing around the park to keep any geese that might show up from walking up on shore.

The situation is a little different in Mars Hill, where officials are trying the fencing first.

At a Town Council meeting on Monday night, the panel agreed to put up some of the orange 24-inch high plastic fencing on property of a neighbor who lives adjacent to the park.

“We’re looking to be proactive and get an early jump on it,” Mersereau said.

There is no single answer to dealing with the problem, according to Hoppe, who was at the Mars Hill meeting.

The geese are only responding to an ideal situation that people created for them, the biologist said.

“Man made it and man has to make that not a perfect habitat,” he said.

He said fencing is a start, but it must be maintained. Loud noise to keep the birds away, letting people walk their dogs near where the geese are and addling eggs also must be done. In addition, he said, signs should be put up telling people not to feed the geese.

“It’s not one situation,” Hoppe said. “It’s multiple things that you’re going to be doing.

“It has to be a total, combined effort,” he said. “We have to adjust what we’ve always been satisfied with.”