On Thu, 29 Jan 1998, Christine Maack wrote:

> ... they introduced
> themselves. There were always a few, but as the city
> grew and more lawns sprang up, more golf courses,
> playing fields, and lush swards along the airport
> runways, the normally cautious, easily spooked and
> every watchful Canada Goose made an interesting
> discovery: good food and hardly any predation.
>
> Now there are some poor harrassed bureaucrats
> working on goose "management" plans, holding
> public hearings and trying to find abatement measures
> that everyone can agree on.

I was pleased that the Times article (unlike the P-I) at least
mentioned the possibility of replacing grass at the beaches, an obvious
solution to the goose "problem" that has received essentially no press.
Lawn grasses are non-native weeds that are invasive in both gardens and
native habitats and are magnets for geese. Kirkland's "solution" of hiring
dogs to chase geese is bizarre in light of ordinances that threaten the
rest of us with $500 fines if our dogs are even near a beach, let alone
caught harassing wildlife.
Although our national obsession with lawns borders on religious
imperative in some places (Salt lake City legally requires home owners to
have them) and supports the lawn mower and lawn fertilizer industries, in
the environmentally concious Pacific Northwest you would think a public
education campaign could convince people to replace these weeds with some
native shrubs (around lake shores, at least) to solve the goose "problem"
and restore some native ecosystems at the same time.
Monoculture rears its ugly head again. Diversify!


Paul Talbert
paul at muller.fhcrc.org