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Oppossoms are better than merely smart. They eat HELLA PEST INSECTS!
now, Geese...
Geese are fiercely protective of their families and flocks and are amazing at guarding territory; they cannot be bribed or ingratiated. In brazil, a prison has provided a habitat for geese around the facility between the inner fence and the outer wall which has been surprisingly effective at discouraged escape attempts.
Can't be bribed? What if you could get a clutch of goose eggs to imprint on you? Then you'd be part of the family and invincible with your goose army! You could go goose-stepping across the continent!
Let's make a deal:
You go ahead and try to get close enough to a clutch of goose eggs that you can incubate them to hatching;
I'll point and laugh as their parents and all the other geese in the entire flock swarm you in a solid frenzied wall of honking, hissing, biting, bludgeoning, implacable white-hot incandescent fury.
You are proposing to fuck with a force of nature, my friend. I can't stop you. But they can. X3
Since they're just outside your home, you make a hole in the wall and build a nest box inside it. Eggs get laid in there. When hatching day nears, you toss food over the wall to tempt mom off the nest for a minute. As soon as she steps away, you slam down a portcullis and take over childcare on your side of the wall. Later you and your goose tribe raise the portcullis and march forth together.
Of course, it could fail disastrously.
I know you posted jokingly, but I can’t help myself.
Geese lay their eggs in fairly open spots on the ground, typically near water (often barely out of the water in my experience), not really ever in nest boxes (I’ve never heard of them using a covered/enclosed space for nesting, and we have tons of them around here). They want a clear view of their surroundings, and ready access to water for their hatchlings. The females incubate and the males stay near to guard the nest, because they like to be exposed, and are mean as hell as a direct result of their nesting behavior.
You’d be better off just buying fertile eggs and incubating them wholly independently, but they likely wouldn’t be accepted into the wild flock if they aren’t hatched by one of the flock, even if they are initially incubated by one. I mean I’m not super sure if geese “adopt” other goslings, as they are mostly self-sufficient within a few days, but if they do I doubt they would be fully strangers like they would be if you swipe them.
Subscribed! More Goose Facts please!
The only other really cool one I’ve got is that occasionally (like it’s only been reported a handful of times sort of thing), they will use an abandoned nest in a tree. These are really big nests, like from bald eagles, so plenty of space for both parents (bald eagle nests are large enough to hold 3-5 human toddlers fairly comfortably).
Bald eagles typically nest along waterways as well, so overhanging nests are an interesting opportunity. I rather assume the goslings just jump out into the water, but I honestly don’t know if their tiny bodies would survive the fall onto regular ground. Probably would, they weigh almost nothing.
It works for wood ducks, so hopefully goslings as well.
I mean I’m not super sure if geese “adopt” other goslings
Not sure how close duck behavior is to goose, but I watched a mama duck assault the ever-living fuck out of a duckling following her until it ran off cheeping furiously and hiding in a bush. I assume that it was part of another nearby clutch as there were a lot of ducks in the area, and she was having none of it.
You ever do a desk pop?
I get the reference but it is odd that you connected this to that.
How is it odd? They're having a tuna vs lion debate.
You could probably win, but it would require a 2x4 or bo staff, and at the very least, eye protection, if not basically moderate leather armor.
and are amazing at guarding territory
I used to work at a MSFT facility whose parking garage was built in a reconfigured wetlands.
The geese would just hang out in the parking garage. They would not move for cars, people, anything, and would attack you as you walk by them.
To my knowledge, a decade later, this problem still exists.