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Canadian
Geese
Living With
Wildlife
Canada Geese in Massachusetts
Historical Info
and Range of Canada Geese
Perhaps no sound more clearly
evokes an image of wildness than the honking of migrating geese.
Canada geese are large birds, averaging 10-14 pounds. Among
waterfowl (ducks, geese and swans) of North America, Canada geese
are second to only swans in size. Geese form permanent pair bonds,
but if one bird dies, the other will seek a mate in the next
breeding season. Most Canada geese don’t begin nesting until they
are three, but make up for it by being long lived. Adult females
lay 4-6 eggs in a clutch. If the clutch is destroyed, geese
generally don’t re-nest, but with two large birds guarding a nest,
the chances of success are good. Usually by the time the young are
4-6 weeks old, the broods begin gathering into one large flock.
Non-breeders and yearlings form separate flocks. By fall, they all
gather into one large flock. Canada geese have passed through
Massachusetts on their journeys to and from their artic breeding
grounds for centuries. But it was unusual for them to spend much
time here. Yet today in Massachusetts you can find Canada Geese
any time of the year. In some areas there are too many geese! Why
the change?
The “Poop” on
Canada Geese
Even though the birds look the
same, there are two different populations of Canada Geese in the
Commonwealth. The first population is the migratory population,
which comes through the state in the spring and fall. This
population historically nested in northern California and wintered
in the Carolinas. Massachusetts is one of the many resting areas
for these migrating birds on their way north or south. Recently
this population’s patterns have changed which will be explained
further.
The resident Canada Geese nesting
in Massachusetts are descendents of captive geese used by
waterfowl hunters. As live birds were more effective at luring
migrating waterfowl from the air than wooden decoys and artificial
calls; flocks of captive mallards and Canada Geese were kept for
this purpose. In 1935, the federal government took measures to
protect the declining waterfowl populations. Using live decoys was
outlawed and subsequently many of these captive birds were
liberated. Because they had no pattern of migration, these geese
began nesting in eastern Massachusetts. The habitat for geese was
perfect. Houses and estates lined reservoirs and other ponds. Golf
courses and mowed parks were an added bonus. Since the Canada
goose is a grazer, lawns, often watered and fertilized, coming
down to the water’s edge, provide an excellent source of food. In
urban areas, there were few predators.
Weather is the single most
significant control of migratory goose populations. Our springs
are much milder than those in the Artic, where migratory geese
nest. Resident geese in Massachusetts successfully hatch a clutch
every year, while migratory geese are much less successful, due to
extreme weather conditions in the artic. Another factor affecting
the expansion of Canada Geese occurred in the 1960’s and 70’s with
a “transplantation” project carried out by MassWildlife
biologists. Birds were transplanted into central and western
Massachusetts to the applause of both hunters and non-hunters. No
one imagined the population explosion that followed.
With excellent habitat,
relatively low numbers of predators, town-imposed restrictions on
hunting, and the natural tendency of family groups to stay
together, the resident goose flocks grew. In 1983, the Christmas
Bird Count indicated 21,700 Canada Geese in the Commonwealth. This
count included both resident and migrant birds, and the
MassWildlife biologists estimated 10-12,000 of the geese were
probably year-round residents. By 1991, there were 25,000 resident
geese and the 1997 waterfowl survey estimated 38,000 geese. As
goose numbers increased, so did problems. Now there are geese on
golf courses, in gardens, over shellfish beds, on lawns, beaches,
water supplies and cranberry bogs. What can be done?
Preventing
Goose Grief
The problem is not the presence
of geese, but the numbers of geese. Here are a few suggestions to
prevent goose grief, but keep in mind that it takes persistence
and a combination of tactics to keep geese from becoming pests:
- STOP FEEDING – Geese
concentrate wherever people feed them. Feeding encourages birds
to stay in areas where they normally wouldn’t be and build up
flocks the habitat can’t support. The food you feed the ducks
and geese is not their proper diet. Feeding makes geese less
wary of people and lowers natural winter mortality. You may
enjoy feeding ducks and geese, but it is in their best interest
if you don’t.
- SCARE TACTICS - Geese learn
that familiar things are safe. When there is change, geese
aren’t sure if it is safe any longer. Putting out flags, tying
aluminum pie plates along lines or using scarecrows may keep
geese away from an area until they learn these objects pose no
threat. Full-bodied swan decoys sometimes work for a while
because geese perceive swans as threats. However, as the decoys
sit and do nothing, the geese will learn to ignore them. When
passive scaring devices don’t work, try slowly approaching the
birds then flapping a tablecloth. Some people report success by
allowing their dogs to run at the geese. Loud noises may also
work, but geese can adapt to noise too. If geese have to spend
too much energy avoiding harassment to eat and rest properly,
they will go elsewhere.
- BARRIERS – Geese tend to walk
to their feeding site from the water, and rarely fly up over a
fence, especially during the “moulting” period when their flight
feathers are growing. A 3-foot chicken wire fence is an
effective barrier. Geese like to be able to see around them,
which is why you don’t see them in the woods of tall grass
fields. Therefore, planting a hedge or leaving a wide swatch of
uncut weeds between the water and mowed grass creates a natural,
low-maintenance barrier.
- HUNTING – Even when the geese
are discouraged by the above tactics, they still move elsewhere,
bringing the problem to that area. To achieve a reasonable
comfort level for both geese and people, the number of geese
must be reduced. Geese have been hunted in New England for
centuries and their tasty meat is prized by many. All migratory
birds, including Canada Geese, are protected by an international
migratory bird treaty. Hunting migratory birds is allowed, but
timing of the season, its length, the number of birds which can
be taken, and the hunting methods are strictly regulated by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. States may add restrictions and
town sometimes impose additional bylaws. When local ordinances
become so restrictive that they effectively prohibit hunting,
towns inadvertently create “sanctuaries” for geese, and the
buildup of flocks can cause problems. In 1995, the Massachusetts
Fisheries and Wildlife Board instituted special “early” and
“late” goose seasons designed to reduce the resident goose
population. Data suggested that 25% of the resident goose
population was harvested, but recent studies indicate that for
populations to be controlled, at least 30-35% need to be
harvested annually.
There are creative solutions to
allow for hunting geese, even in restrictive towns. Golf Clubs
and race tracks invite waterfowlers on to their grounds during
hunting season at designated hours. Fire and police departments
use their networks to find waterfowl hunters to hunt municipal
properties and reservoirs within certain guidelines beyond state
and federal laws. Landowners open their land to hunters willing
to abide by any restrictions he or she may impose. Property
owners with goose problems can contact local sportsmen’s clubs,
municipal departments or their state Environmental Police
officer to find potential sportsmen and women who hunt
waterfowl.
Source:
MassWildlife
“Balancing the needs of wildlife with the needs of people.”
www.masswildlife.org
New Goose Recipe: U.S.
Plans To Ease Culling of 'Residents'
Geese That 'Don't Know Where Canada Is'
Could Face Early Demise in U.S. Suburbs
By JAMES P.
STERBA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
KENT, N.Y. -- Ever since Annmarie
Baisley, the town supervisor here, spent $8,000 to turn 125 Canada
geese on Lake Carmel into edible protein four years ago, she's
been getting cards calling her an assassin. She's also been
getting re-elected.
The 1999 Lake Carmel roundup
began before dawn on June 24, when the geese were in their annual
feather molt and couldn't fly. The big birds were herded with
boats into shore pens, then loaded into crates bound for a
slaughterhouse -- their frozen breasts destined for a church food
pantry. It was over before breakfast.
The next morning, protesters --
all but one from out of town -- showed up with placards, one
reading, "Baisley the Butcher." But most residents were pleased to
have the lake's picnic grounds, walking paths and five public
beaches free of goose feces for the first time in years, town
officials say. Water quality improved. Swimmers felt safer.
Canada Goose or Branta-Canadensis
For decades, roundups such as Kent's were tangled in red tape and
snarled by animal-rights protesters. Getting federal and state
permits took months, and deciding whether to be for or against
geese was a local politician's nightmare. That's changing as
nonmigrating geese populations burgeon -- the U.S. total is
estimated at 3.5 million to five million -- and costs of dealing
with them balloon. With towns and states lobbying for relief,
Washington has eased the federal permitting process and is now
planning to do away with it completely.
In a rule change pushed by state
wildlife agents and expected by fall, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service plans to delegate authority to the states to issue permits
to kill so-called resident Canada geese and their eggs. The plan's
goal is to reduce nonmigrating geese populations by upwards of a
million birds over several years. The Humane Society of the U.S.,
a Washington-based animal-protection group, calls it a plan for
"mass killing."
The idea, officials say, is to
make it easier for towns, companies and others who want to get rid
of geese, by allowing destruction of eggs or killing of adults.
Several options would be open. Liberalized hunting seasons could
reduce populations in some rural venues. But hunters are in
decline. And since hunting is off-limits and frowned upon in most
suburban areas, wildlife-control companies are looking forward to
big business when permits for roundups become routine.
Canada geese are one of 836
species of birds protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of
1916. The Humane Society of the U.S. says allowing them to be
killed "violates both the language and the spirit" of that treaty.
But the Fish and Wildlife Service asserts that most of these geese
don't belong under the act because they don't really migrate. They
stay put, more or less, year-round.
Why have these geese stopped
migrating? Wildlife authorities are asked this question more than
any other about geese. Did climate change make them stop?
Pollution? What could possibly cause a majestic V-formation of
honkers high overhead on a thousand-mile migration to the Arctic
tundra to suddenly drop down and land on a golf course in, say,
Greenwich, Conn., defy their instincts, and take up the posh
suburban life?
The answer is startling to many
Americans: These geese didn't stop migrating. They never migrated.
These geese, say wildlife historians, have virtually nothing to do
with wild, migrating flocks. "Resident" geese -- the ones most
likely to be seen in suburban parks, ponds and soccer fields are
descendants of farmed geese and flocks of "live decoys" once used
by professional hunters.
The Fish & Wildlife Service calls
them "hybrids ... originating in captivity and artificially
introduced" around the country. In other words, in most places
these geese are a non-native species thriving, like feral cats and
kudzu, in an artificial habitat: the welfare-wildlife world of
sprawl.
Not everyone makes the
distinction between "resident" geese and wild ones. "The term
'resident' is a convenient fiction," wrote Ann Frisch, national
coordinator of group called Coalition to Protect Canada Geese, to
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a 1998 opposition to the
plan. "The choreography of the terms resident and migratory has
the intent to remove the Canada geese from the protection of law."
Ms. Frisch, and others, argue that the cause of the problem in the
first place was the vigorous propagation and stocking of geese by
state fish and game agencies to enhance hunting opportunities --
and boost revenues by selling more hunting licenses.
Loved for their beauty and
loathed for their excrement, Canada geese have divided the suburbs
for decades. The birds generally weigh 10 to 16 pounds, and live
about a dozen years. Each goose defecates five or six times an
hour, depositing 1.25 pounds of feces, on average, daily. "Lawn
carp" some call them. Even the late George Harrison took a shot at
them in a song called "Pisces Fish" on his last CD: "Rowers
gliding on the river, Canada geese crap along the bank ..."
Corporations, colleges, golf
courses, airports, municipalities, water reservoirs, cemeteries
and others spend millions of dollars a year using dogs, noise,
chemicals and other means to keep geese off places people don't
want them to be. New York City, for instance, has budgeted $4.5
million over the next three years to keep geese and other birds
from degrading drinking water in its reservoirs.
Orangetown, N.Y., opted for a
"humane" no-kill policy for its geese that involves harassing them
with border collies. It pays Mary Felegy, president of Fair Game
Goose Management Services Inc., $12,000 annually to have her
collies chase geese off one 40-acre park. The municipal golf
course pays her another $12,000 to harass geese off fairways.
Nearby Clarkstown paid $6,500 to
kill 452 of its thousand or so geese in 1996 and 1997. But the
town council, pressured by an animal-rights group, stopped the
roundups. Clarkstown now pays Mrs. Felegy $36,000 a year to hound
geese off parks and ponds with her dogs.
Clarkstown supervisor
Charlie Holbrook thinks chasing geese is a waste of money that
only makes the birds someone else's problem. Adds Gregory Chasko,
a Connecticut wildlife official: "The collie people have a great
thing going. They chase the geese off the park in the morning and
they fly to the golf course. Then they chase them off the golf
course in the afternoon and they fly back to the park."
That can happen, admits Mrs.
Felegy. But she says the geese her dogs chase away usually fly to
"nonconflict" areas where people aren't bothered by them: median
strips of expressways or around megamalls. Twelve geese remain on
a secluded end of the 201-acre Lake Carmel in Kent. This April,
Tom Maglaras, a licensed wildlife controller, found three of their
nests, punctured 15 eggs with a barbecue skewer, and billed the
town $400. Destroying eggs, a practice sanctioned by
animal-protection groups, reduces populations, but at a slow rate.
To have the same impact as killing one adult goose, say wildlife
biologists, you have to destroy all the eggs it lays over an
average lifespan. Destroying 95% of the eggs over 10 years would
reduce the goose population 25%, given average rates of adult
resident geese mortality, they say.
After four Canada geese were
sucked into the engines of an Air Force jet in Alaska in 1995,
causing it to crash and killing all 24 people aboard, airports
have had to up their vigilance. Delaware's Dover Air Force Base
pays Rebecca Ryan, director of Flyaway Farm and Kennels, in
Southport, N.C., about $100,000 annually to keep geese away from
runways using border collies. Migrating geese stop in seasonally,
but day-to-day problems are with the local geese, she says. "They
have no idea where Canada is."
The comeback from near-extinction
of the giant Canada goose (Branta canadensis maxima), is one of
the great wildlife success stories of the 20th century. That it
went terribly awry late in the century is an irony pioneering
conservationists couldn't have thought of -- anymore than they
could have thought of suburbs.
In contrast, few people today can
conceive of the desperation early conservationists felt in the
face of the rapacious slaughter of wildlife after the Civil War
and into the 20th century. It was called the "age of
extermination."
Robins were routinely killed and
eaten back then. People collected and ate songbird eggs, too. A
huge market for wild-bird feathers, sold to hat makers, thrived
world-wide. At the London Millinery Feather Market's quarterly
sale in August of 1912, the feathered skins of 1,600 hummingbirds,
bound for bonnets, sold for two cents each.
Just as the great herds of
American bison were killed for commercial gain, all wildlife was
the booty of professional hunters who killed year-round without
limits on what they could sell. Butcher shops were full of birds
and animals shot or netted by hunters. Wild birds were killed out.
The Labrador duck became extinct
in the 1870s and the passenger pigeon, netted and sold as squab,
soon would be too. (The last one died in the Cincinnati zoo in
1914).
"Of all the meat-shooters, the
market-gunners who prey on wild fowl and ground game birds for the
big-city markets are the most deadly to wildlife," wrote William
T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, in 1913.
"Enough geese, ducks, quail, ruffed grouse, prairie chickens,
heath hens and wild pigeons have been butchered by gunners and
netters for 'the market' to have stocked the whole world."
Stopping this carnage was the
first triumph of the American conservation movement. It took
decades. In 1878, Iowa adopted the first bag-limit law,
restricting shooters to 25 prairie chickens per day. In 1900, the
first Federal conservation law, the Lacey Act, prohibited
interstate commerce in illegally-killed game. In 1901, Oregon
limited hunters to 100 ducks per week. Enforcement, however, was
rare.
In 1916, the U.S. and Great
Britain (on behalf of Canada) signed the Migratory Bird Treaty, to
regulate commerce in wild birds. Legislation implementing it
passed two years later. But by the 1920s, some six million
recreational hunters had become as much of a threat to wild fowl
as professional hunters were before. In 1930, the giant Canada
goose, which had been relatively easy to hunt, was widely believed
extinct in the wild.
Bringing it back became an urgent
quest.
Something crucial happened in
1935: Live decoys were outlawed. These were wounded or caught
birds, used by hunters to lure wild birds into gunning range.
Decoys were held captive by cutting a wingtip or clipping feathers
so they couldn't fly. Decoy flocks held some of the last giant
Canada geese in existence.
When live decoys were outlawed,
hunters got rid of tens of thousands of the birds. Wildlife
agencies took some, to help restock wild populations.
But many settled in local
communities. Some towns wanted the geese for park ornaments, like
peacocks. Farmers took and raised others. The geese embraced human
habitats and handouts. When America's suburbs sprouted after World
War II, "resident" geese soon moved in. With plenty of food and
protection from predators and hunters, they thrived.
Jim Forbes, a retired Wildlife
Services agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recalls
hearing about President Eisenhower encountering goose feces on a
country-club fairway in New York's Westchester County in the
1950s. "I heard Ike slipped on some goose doo-doo and asked: Can't
something be done about this?" he said.
From then until the 1980s, Mr.
Forbes said, federal agents rounded up "nuisance geese" in the
suburbs, and relocated them to other states, where they were
wanted for hunting. In 1982, an avian influenza outbreak brought
relocations to a halt. Goose populations soared. By the time
relocations were allowed again, nobody wanted geese anymore.
Nonmigrating geese are
multiplying fastest on the East Coast, says the Fish and Wildlife
Service, at an average rate of 14% a year since 1989.
Nonmigrating geese now outnumber
wild, migrating geese along the Atlantic Flyway, the agency says.
Some see political capital among
residents fed up with geese. In a statement issued before Federal
goose hearings in May 2002, Congressman Jim Saxton said: "Every
citizen in New Jersey who drives past a farmer's field or pond, or
walks through a park or soccer field can see the problem. It's
much worse than five years ago, but it's not nearly as bad as it
will be five years from now if we don't act soon." Run-off from
goose droppings into the water supply, he said, is "a serious
public health threat."
Back in Kent, N.Y., Kathy Doherty
mails out "how to" packets to towns seeking advice on dealing with
their geese and the "inflammatory misinformation" and "plenty of
anger" generated by animal-rights groups.
Mrs. Doherty, who was chairwoman
of the Lake Carmel Park District, researched the problem and
lobbied the town council to approve rounding up the Lake Carmel
geese. She was rewarded by being elected to the council herself.
"Heck," says Clarkstown's Mr.
Holbrook, "you could run for president on this issue."
Write to James P. Sterba at
jim.sterba@wsj.com
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