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How resident Canada geese came to be

"Scientific game management" is the phrase used to define the manipulation of habitat and wildlife to produce the "maximum sustained yield" of the species hunters want to kill.  To provide even more geese for hungry hunters, state biologists stole eggs from goose nests and incubated them in ovens.  This would not have affected wild populations because the geese would most likely have laid another clutch of eggs to nurture.

The purloined eggs were successful in hatching in the artificial warmth of the ovens.  The goslings grew and were released at various places along the Atlantic flyway as soon as they were able to forage for themselves.  They have prospered ever since, but having no parents to teach them to migrate, they have stayed more or less in the general areas where they were released.

The project was a great success as far as meeting the objective of providing hunters with more geese is concerned, but there is the matter of their poop, which has causing swimming places to be closed because of the water's high coliform count, disgusted golfers, kept homeowners from using their patios, and made parks unpalatable, all because these residential geese don't move on as their migratory cousins do.  They have also been a problem at airports where they can be sucked into jet engines endangering passengers and crew.

The geese are particularly fond of mowed grass which draws them to suburban areas and golf courses where hunting is not advisable.  One solution has been to round them up when they are flightless in early summer and slaughter them, giving their flesh. which is likely to be contaminated with pesticides, to local food banks   This has roused the wrath of animal rights activists and local residents who consider the geese an asset as long as it's not their patio that's pooped on. 

More humane methods of dealing with the problem are available, however.  There have been cases where flightless geese were trucked to an area where their droppings would not offend humans.  Another popular method for use when geese do have their flight feathers is to use border collies to shoo them from places where they are not wanted.  The geese are merely shooed, not harmed.  The dogs think it's great sport.  A single dog handler can visit several areas a day.

Another method is to make areas less attractive to the geese.  They like short grass because it enables them to spot the approach of possible predators.  Keeping the grass longer reduces visibility and makes it harder for them to walk around.  Another method, successfully used on corporate lawns, is to break up the expanse with areas of shrubbery.

There is also a grape-scented repellant that is distasteful to geese and causes them to go elsewhere, but it requires fogging equipment to apply it over a wide area.

If the geese are still gaining in numbers, there's always the birth control measure of addling (shaking) the eggs so that they do not hatch, but leaving them on the nest so the geese will continue to tend them instead of laying replacements.

Traditional migratory geese form strong bonds and mate for life.  Can anyone tell us if these resident geese who did not have the benefit of a family upbringing do the same?  Click on link below.

Letter from Sandy Baker of the Monroe County Alliance for Wildlife Protection that later appeared in the Rochester NY Democrat and
Chronicle. c. October 20, 2000