BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Birding New York to Kill 170k Geese

New York State is planning to kill off 170,000 Canadian Geese -

NY Times Article on Geese slaughter

What do you think? Are geese a menace? Or should another approach be taken?

Seems brutal but they are a menace. They leave droppings which are very messy. We have flocks of them here year-round. They cross the road and you have to brake for them and hope people don't plow into you. People do crazy things too to protect them.

Where do you transport them once you capture them?

The reason for the goose population explosion is us. We have built all sorts of habitats that Canada geese love, like expansive lawns, parks, golf courses and such, and then some of us feed them. The result is that flocks that once migrated yearly now hang around all year and breed much more than they used to. Result; goose droppings everywhere, angry geese in your face when you walk in the park, geese crowding wild ducks out of ponds and lakes. They can't be hunted in city limits, and natural predators are rare or non-existant, so SOMETHING must be done to control their populations. Transporting them just moves the problem to someplace else. What is the alternative?

I've been waiting to respond until a few others did, but, while I love birds, the overpopulation of Canada geese is a real problem. I, and my children, have had first hand experience with them in a state park in NJ and they can be overpowering to small kids who just want to play in the park.

They also cause terrible problems with aircraft near airports. So I think their numbers have to be controlled. As long as it is done humanely, I don't have a problem with controlling their numbers, but I certainly wouldn't want to see them wiped out.

no matter where you are in NYS they seem to be all over. They are all over any new housing development where there is a near by pond. They have taken over same as the seagulls in parking lots. One of our hospitals here had to fill in the ponds on the grounds because they were crossing the road and stopping the ambulances from getting to the hospital ED.........but whose fault is it (we mess up the echo system, start feeding the wildlife and complain once it gets out of hand. Don't feed the birds and quit taking over the wildlifes homes.

I find it odd that this is coming up almost two years after the Sullenberger flight. Had this been done last summer, it would have made more sense. To me this is just one of those problems that "all of a sudden" somebody (politician or government agency) finds unbearable and decides to act upon after ignoring it for years. I am not opposed to hunting or some culling of populations, as that is more humane than starvation. The Canada Goose population has exploded, and does need to be controlled. But I am frightened when some politico suddenly decides that some animal population, which has been around for years, is a menace and must be killed. They're trying to do that with cats in my town. They claim the cats are attracting mice and rats. No, I'm not kidding.

Kim -

I think they started working on this after the flight but it takes government a long while to do things like this. We could certainly argue that government should move more quickly on important issues!

So wait, how are cats attracting mice??

Can we somehow use these geese in a way that benefits society? Think of all the eggs for food.

Apparently, people are putting cat food out, and when the cats' away, the mice come and play. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other things for rodents to eat other than catfood (if it even is such a problem, as I rarely see any mice or rats running around town), such as garbage and seafood from our bodies of water. I think we'd see more of them if we had less cats.

You're right about the government taking a long time to do something. What bad PR! Nobody is particularly angry at the geese now, so it just makes the NY gov't look cruel and somewhat inept.

Jilly -

That's part of the odd part. you would think they'd cook the geese and feed tons of homeless people. But they were talking about just burying the bodies ...