He’s heard enough jokes to write one joke book, maybe two. His job routinely draws a giggle and a smile. He himself even chuckles at his profession. His name, Kevin Mahoney. His occupation, professional pooper scooper.

       Yes, dog waste removal services or pooper scoopers are popping up or dropping down across the globe and even right here in Randolph Township thanks to resi­dent Mahoney and his new entrepreneurial business venture aptly named “Happy Tails.”

     “Parents don’t want their kids to play in it and it’s my job to pick it up,” said 29-year-old Mahoney, affectionately nicknamed “poop master” by some of those kids.

     In today’s busy day and age, pet owners often want someone else to dispose their dog’s waste practi­cally and legally. Some city sanitation departments prohibit mixing animal waste with residential gar­bage. Also, uncollected dog feces trigger a myriad of problems for neighbors like foul odors, flies and pets who track the waste into homes.

      That’s where Mahoney comes in, charging $7.50 per visit per week, at $25 for initial or one-time cleanups. Prices vary around the U.S. from $3.50 to $15 per dog per week.

     Mahoney launched his business in May and now boasts 10 clients, adding about two customers each week. It takes about 15 minutes to clean each yard and he strives to clean four yards or make $30 an hour.

“I address the bills to the puppy dog. Why not?” Mahoney said. “They are the guys who give me the business.”

To supplement his income, Ma­honey works at Burrini’s Old World Market in Mount Free­dom. If he reaches his goal of 850 clients within the next two years, he intends to sell the business and start another.

“If I keep growing the way I am growing, (it can be) my only source of income,” said Mahoney, who works rain or shine, year-round.

As tools of the trade, pooper scoopers use a “lobby dust pan,” a small shovel and trash bags. They shun the scissors-type pooper scoopers found in pet stores, which are used by amateurs and can’t accomplish the job.

Mahoney uses a scoop and rake to “pick it up real quick.” He inspects the stools for abnormalities, such as the presence of worms, advising the client when the dog should see a veterinarian.

Waste is deposited into the town’s dumpster or the client’s garbage cans. He disinfects his tools and shoes with bleach to prevent the spread of bacteria.

Mahoney learned about the business when he and his wife moved to Kansas last June. Not wanting a stressful job, he saw an ad for a pooper scooper. Though the position sounded crazy, the lifelong dog owner decided to give it a try.

“I actually enjoy doing it,” Mahoney said. ‘It’s nice. I get to be outside all day, make my own hours.”

     Entrepreneurial ventures circulate in Mahoney’s blood. He unsuccessfully launched more than a dozen companies over the last 10 years, ranging from greeting cards to lifetime reminder kits. Mahoney, originally from Long Island, lost interest and enthusiasm in those pursuits. Still, he said he has learned and grown from the mistakes.

This time, it’s different, as he has familial support. His wife of two years is his manager, drawing fliers and balancing finances. The two brainstorm daily on marketing tactics. Still, one of his best forms of advertisement is sheer laughter.

“I don’t care what people say. I am laughing, too,” Mahoney said. “The more people are aware of the service, the more people pick up on it.”

Indeed, his business boasts job security. “Dogs always poop,” he said.

BY ROB SEMAN

     Kevin Mahoney stood on a lawn and looked upon the scene of destruction that was his handiwork.

     At his feet and scattered about the lawn lay the unmoving forms of what seem to be a half-dozen dead Canada geese. Two bob up and down in the pond in the center of the lawn.

     To living geese, this is an area to be avoided. To Mahoney, it is a job well done — but his job has nothing to do with killing birds.

Mahoney, an animal waste re­moval specialist from Randolph, uses plastic decoys to frighten away geese. The waterfowl are fooled into believing that there are predators nearby.

“It’s like if you walked into a house and there were a bunch of dead bodies in there. You’re going to walk away,” Mahoney said.

The decoys are a unique non­-lethal method of controlling the geese. In the past five months, many more methods have been discussed during hearings held throughout the on by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but many written statements issued at the hearings fa­vored non-lethal methods.

The federal agency is seeking to create an environmental impact statement on how to control the res­ent Canada goose population, which continues to grow at an alarming rate. A summary of the hearings recently was completed by the agency’s Office of Migratory Bird Management and is available the public.

According to the summary, 1,758 people nationwide submitted written comments supporting non-lethal methods. Another 725 people submitted written comments suppor­ting the general depredation order, which means getting rid of geese by any means.

Hearings were held in Parsippany, Denver, Nashville, Danbury, Conn., Bellevue, Wash., Brookings, S.D.,

Richmond, Va., and Palatine, Ill.  A belief that the government wildlife services have an “internal bias” toward using lethal methods and dissatisfaction with the “current time-consuming and burdensome federal permit process” was also indicated, according to the summary. 

      Canada geese are broken into two groups:  resident and migratory.  The government is focusing on the resident population because the geese do not migrate and reproduce in the area they have nested in.  It is believed that members of the resident group were bred decades ago in the United States for hunting. 

      There are 2,000 to 3,000 resident Canada geese in Morris County, according to findings by the Morris County Park Commission in January.  Rob Jennings, a natural resource program specialist for the commission, said a Canada goose produces about 4.75 fecal matter per day.  A small pack of 100 geese can produce up to 2,250 pounds per month, and 27,375 pounds per year. 

      “When I first got here you couldn’t walk on this property,” Mahoney said of a property in Green Village, one of six that he is using the decoys on.  About 40 to 60 geese had visited the property.  Mahoney said that within six months, the decoys had reduced that number to a pair if any.

      “It was covered (with droppings).  It was disgusting.  As you can see, there’s no geese.  I haven’t had any waste here in weeks,” Mahoney said.

      Mahoney, whose company, Happy Tails, specializes in canine waste removal, began using the decoys as a way to keep geese from making what to him seemed a never-ending supply of droppings.  He adopted the decoy idea from Canadian animal control specialist Barry Wood in order to drive away the goose population and lessen the impact on his clients’ wallets in terms of his repeat visits.

      Mahoney said the decoys are a better alternative to lethal methods, which he strongly opposes. 

      “I think a hunting season is good, but to do these mass killings?”  Mahoney said.  “I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

      Popular existing methods of goose population control include hunting by permit, which can take place during the hunting season for the birds in November, and egg addling, in which wildlife agencies are allowed to shake eggs, killing the fetus inside and replacing them in the nest.

Mother geese are unaware that the eggs will not hatch until well after mating season.

Border collies also are used to chase geese away. Manipulation of known geese habitats, such as plant­ing high vegetation in areas of low grass where the geese thrive, is an­other method of control.

Anthony Mancuso, the president of the.Rainbow Lakes Community Club in Parsippany, however, said that many in the lakeside communi­ty, including himself, feel that cur­rent control methods just aren’t working.

“We felt that there was definitely a need to thin the flocks,” Man­cuso said.

“You can’t stop the geese from coming,” he said. “We’ve tried fences and dogs, and we’ve run into the same problems as everybody.”

“We’re all animal lovers here. We’re very protective of our wildlife,’ Mancuso said. “But it’s a double-edged sword. It’s polluting the environment. The very environ­ment that protects the geese are destroying, and destroying the quality of life in the area.”

The Office of Migratory Bird Management will now use the information from the hearings to construct a preliminary environmental impact statement recommending what methods of control should be used for public release sometime in the fall. A set of hearings on the statement will be held shortly afterward. A final draft will follow based on the findings of the second hearings.

(The following was an insert appearing in the middle of the article:)

POPULATION CONTROL

The government is considering six approaches to controlling the growing goose population:

   • A no-action alternative. Under this option, the situation regarding the goose population would remain status quo.

   • Increased promotion of non-­lethal control and management. This would promote habitat manipulation, meaning the cultivation of high plants and foliage, harassment techniques such as the use of border collies to scare off the birds, and trapping and relocation.

     • Nest and egg depredation order. This includes egg addling, which is practiced by state and federal agencies, and the taking of nests. This op­tion, according to the summary, would not show an “appreciable.reduction” in the numbers of adult Canada geese.

    • Depredation order for health and human safety. This would authorize the killing of adult geese, goslings, nests and eggs by states in areas where a threat to health and human safety is proven, such as at airports and water supplies.

• Conservation order. This would allow for nest and egg destruction and the trapping and culling of adult geese and goslings in areas that they pose threats to health and human safety and damage personal or public proper­ty.

     • The general depredation order. This would allow for all forms of con­trolling the goose population, lethal and non-lethal.