Hi Tweeters!
I wanted to respond to Kelly Mcallister's basically rational question, what is
wrong with culling the goose herd? I have a soft spot for Kelly's argument
because I think it's important for us politically to retain the right of
lethal removal for wildlife management, such as removing cowbirds from
Kirtland Warbler areas or gulls from puffin rocks.
This is a very different situation. A bureaucracy that knows nothing at all
about wildlife is very aggressively spreading the deception that Canada Geese
live on handouts. If that were true there would be 25 times as many geese as
old men with bags of bread crumbs. Canada Geese are grazers that live on
lawn. The ag people in this state don't want us to think rationally about how
we use land to manage for wildlife, but want us to think in old fashioned
terms about good and" bad" or nuisance wildlife.
I believe the appeal of lawns has to be broken or it will ultimately destroy
the world. How's that for over statement? Here in Seattle, the big four -the
crow, starling, house sparrow (they work with Starlings when Starlings forage
a lawn) and Canada Geese have taken over because of lawns. (By the way,
nobody has any data but I bet it was Crows that wiped out the common Nighthawk
as a breeder here) . Because people all over the world emulate Americans,
sometimes very misguidedly, lawns are in a position to take over everywhere
else. The Starling continues to show up further and further south in Latin
America, and it is increasing in Japan. It's a dreary future with more lawns,
and the whole goose culling program is just a disgusting government subsidy to
please lawn owners.

-Ed Newbold, Seattle (newboldwildlife at netscape.net)


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