Tweeters,

I read with interest Ed Newbold's brief comments, and Kelly
McAllister's more detailed response, concerning urban Canada Goose
control in the Seattle area. In the past, I have been involved with
urban Canada Goose control in Vancouver, B.C. (which does NOT involve
killing geese), and thought I would offer some comments on the
subject.

Thirty years ago, there was no resident Canada Goose population in
the Vancouver area. There were small wintering populations in Pitt
Meadows and elsewhere in the Lower Fraser Valley, but there was no
breeding population. The Vancouver Christmas Bird Count tallied fewer
than 100 Canada Geese until the late 1960s. This contrasts with the
present situation, when there is a resident population of at least
12,000 Canada Geese in the Lower Fraser Valley, and the Vancouver CBC
alone averages more than 2,000 Canada Geese.

The provincial Wildlife Branch, in cooperation with the
Environmental Studies Program at Douglas College (headed by the late
Barry Leach, a noted waterfowl enthusiast) sponsored a Canada Goose
propagation program in the early 1970s, centered especially on
Serpentine Fen in Surrey, B.C. Numerous nesting tubs were erected, and
the goose population began to increase rapidly. One of the objectives
was to produce a huntable population of Canada Geese in the Lower
Fraser Valley. In this, the program was successful; I believe the
current hunter take of geese is about 2,000 to 3,000 in the area,
However, it was not long before complaints of crop damage by local
farmers (especially corn growers) and nuisance complaints from urban
areas began to overshadow the "success" of this program.

As in the Puget Sound area, more and more areas in the Lower
Fraser Valley have become off-limits to hunting, and the annual
hunting kill (plus other mortality factors) is not enough to put a
limit on the goose population, which continues to increase, although
more slowly now than in the 1970s and 1980s. Similar trends in Canada
Goose populations can be seen on Vancouver Island (and in many other
areas around North America)!

A particular problem for years has been Stanley Park in Vancouver.
For a number of reasons, this park has become a major molting area for
the geese. For a period of 2-3 weeks in late June and early July when
the geese are flightless, up to 2000 or more converge on Stanley Park.
The grass in the park becomes covered with goose droppings, there are
frequent complaints of small children being accosted and frightened by
panhandling geese, and the City of Vancouver demanded action.

The "control program" in Stanley Park, which has been carried out
since about the mid-80s, does not involve killing geese. Instead, the
flightless birds are herded by 30 or more wildlife biologists,
technicians, and volunteers onto Lost Lagoon, then steered (with the
aid of several boats in the lagoon, then drift fencing on land) into a
tennis court near the lagoon which has been appropriated for the
occasion. They are then captured, stuffed into individual wire cages
on 2 or more "turkey trucks" (used to deliver turkeys to market),
shipped out to distant parts of the Fraser Valley, and released.

The "goose roundup" was a cooperative effort involving staff from
the B.C. Wildlife Branch, Canadian Wildlife Service, Vancouver Parks
Board, B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, and students from the B.C.
Institute of Technology. For several years, I took part as a
representative from the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, which shares
responsibility for control of goose damage to crops on farmland (which
is quite significant in the area). I have not been involved since I
changed jobs in 1994, but I believe the "roundup" has continued since
then. The roundup attracted local media attention every year, and one
year, was featured even on CNN news coverage. However, it was not
without controversy. Several groups including Lifeforce, a local
animal rights group, objected to this "mistreatment" of wildlife. One
year, an off-balance individual, who perhaps thought we were sending
the geese off to be cooked, took a lunge with a knife at one of the
wildlife biologists. Luckily, no one was hurt.

The goose roundup is only partly successful, at best, in reducing
the urban goose problem. Some of the deported geese come back to
Stanley Park as soon as they can fly again (mid-July or so.) Others
seem to stay in areas where they have been released until the fall.
The roundup does help to reduce goose numbers in Stanley Park during
the peak period of public use in summer (late June to August), but it
has no effect at all on the number of geese coming back to molt next
year. The program has to be repeated year after year for even the
minimal benefits it produces.

I am not advocating the "goose roundup" approach in Stanley Park
as any better than the approach used in the Seattle area. Prior to the
goose roundup, lethal control methods (addling of eggs in concentrated
nesting areas) were tried. The uproar was such that lethal control
methods were considered to be politically unacceptable, and abandoned.

I doubt that efforts to reduce the amount of lawns in shoreline
areas will have much success. In the Vancouver area, the geese tend
to concentrate in some areas (e.g. Stanley Park, Westham Island,
Serpentine Fen) and ignore other areas with suitable habitat. There is
lots of potential for further increase in urban goose numbers! Canada
Geese have become as much a part of the urban landscape as Starlings
and House Sparrows. At least in B.C., the provincial wildlife agency
bears part of the responsibility for getting them established in the
first place.

There is no easy solution to this problem. A large part of the
reason is the widely divergent attitudes of people toward geese. The
hunters who enjoy hunting geese in the Lower Fraser Valley probably
consider the propagation program a success. Many people (including
many TWEETERS subscribers) probably enjoy having geese around; they
are one of few large, conspicuous bird species that flourish in urban
areas. On the other side are the many farmers who sustain losses from
goose damage to their crops every year, and the many urban residents
who object to the aggressiveness and noisiness of geese, and to the
accumulation of goose droppings in parks and other public areas. (At
least one B.C. city has passed a by-law making it illegal to feed
Canada Geese.) As long as public attitudes to geese are polarized the
way they are now, any kind of goose control program-- lethal or
non-lethal-- is bound to be controversial.


Wayne C. Weber
114-525 Dalgleish Drive
Kamloops, B.C. V2C 6E4
Phone: (250) 377-8865
wayne_weber at bc.sympatico.ca





-----Original Message-----
From: Kelly Mcallister <mcallkrm at dfw.wa.gov>
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 9:46 PM
Subject: Re: More Benchmarks & News Trib article




On 29 Mar 2000, Ed Newbold wrote:

> On another subject anyone who gets the Tacoma News Tribune might
check out
> the outdoors column by Bob Mottram today. He wrote a really nice
(overly
> complimentary) story about me and my crusade against the Geese
Culling
> program, the program designed to perfectly meet the needs of an
incompetent
> state bureaucracy. He clearly distinguished between the pure animal
rights
> position and my position ?(blame grass/reduce lawn)...


I am pondering the reference to an incompetent state bureaucracy. My
agency,
Fish and Wildlife, has always worked to try to reduce urban sprawl and
the
constant creep of residential development that damages wildlife
habitat and
limits opportunities for wildlife-oriented recreation, like hunting
and
fishing. In areas where hunting is still possible, Canada Goose
numbers can
be effectively limited. Unfortunately, vast areas of Puget lowland
country
are now off-limits for hunting.

For many years, Habitat Biologists within this state agency have also
tried to
discourage conversion of native shoreline vegetation to lawns. It is
the
will of the majority that creates a political environment where such
recommendations are deemed unpractical (maybe even silly). I can't
help but
think that when we see ills in government, we are often pointing
toward
the mirror.

I agree that reducing lawns, on shoreline margins particularly, would
go
a long ways toward reducing the quantity of resident Canada Goose
habitat.
It is a more sustainable, less costly approach to the problem.
However,
large numbers of people want soft green grass and are willing to pay
tax
dollars to do what it takes to have it, and have it clean of goose
droppings.
So, we reduce the number of geese by another technique. Rather than
reducing
their numbers by reducing habitat, we reduce their numbers by killing
them.
Same result...fewer Canada Geese (and it has to be repeated
periodically,
for an indefinite period of time).

So, the question for me becomes, why is reducing the amount of habitat
more
acceptable than killing geese? Is it because you don't like the waste
of tax
dollars for a repetitive program of goose removal? Or, is it you don't
like
the geese being killed? If it is the latter, you are still arguing an
animal
rights perspective, are you not?

Now I should go find Bob Mottram's article to see if it enlightens me
any.



Kelly McAllister
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife