Guard Geese

Any military station requires protection. You can rely on technologies, but augmenting them with live guards will always provide superior security. Sometimes it's just humans, other times it's dogs. And once, in Germany, the US military chose to deploy geese.

The Ballantine distillery in Scotland employs geese as guards because the birds are exceedingly vocal and are quick to notice anyone upsetting their area. The concept, however, stretches back to Roman times, geese have even been credited for aiding Rome in its struggle against the Gaul invasion in 390 BC. US soldiers were interested and tested them on many of their locations in Germany. The idea was to hire up to 900 of them in all. Surprisingly, 900 geese cost around half the price of a single guard dog, so it wasn't a horrible idea. Despite this, it never truly took off elsewhere. It's likely that the dilemma of how to clean up after 900 geese contributed to this.

Year of Experiment: 1986