![]() Many have chosen to simply cull geese in round-ups where the birds are herded into portable pens and carried to gas chambers, sometimes in the back of parked trucks where their thumps and squawks can be heard by passers-by. In the ’90s, Chicagoland suburbs fought “ fowl with fowl,” carting in mute swans to square off with its resident Canada geese (an ill-advised method that risks the introduction of feral invasive swans). ![]() Louis has tricked would-be parents with wooden decoy eggs. One can contract companies whose border collies bark and scare the birds, or feed geese OvoControl, an oral contraceptive that reduces hatching success. One can choose to chase geese spray them with repellent shoot them with lasers harass them with electronic alarms, air horns, sirens, even the sound of a leaf blower deter them with balloons, scarecrows, and strobe lights. Read: No bird wants to live in a murder nestĪcross the country, many other civilians, land managers, and municipalities are turning to a wide arsenal of methods for wrangling the birds. This spring, the parks department found about half as many nests and 40 percent fewer eggs. Last year, Rochester took a new tack, called “addling”-dipping about 400 goose eggs in corn oil, which prevents them from developing and which appears to have had some initial success. Those actions helped greatly reduce the goose population. It planted tall grasses and wetland plants in favored nest sites. The city has since done its darndest to get the local gaggle under control without resorting to lethal methods. By the early 2000s, the local count reached roughly 40,000. ![]() The rediscovered band of survivors made national news and spurred efforts to rebound their population. Then, in 1962, regional biologists discovered that Rochester’s geese belonged to Branta canadensis maxima, a giant subspecies presumed extinct for 30-plus years and even considered a myth by some. In the early 1960s, the Silver Lake goose count first reached 6,000-one bird for every seven human residents. When a power plant started warming Silver Lake in 1948, the gaggle stopped migrating and became year-round residents. Fifteen soon became 600, as the flock attracted migrating brethren to stick around. Around then, the Canada goose was fated to join a slate of birds-Labrador ducks, great auks, passenger pigeons, Carolina parakeets, and heath hens among them-that humans had wiped from the skies. Charles Mayo, of the hospital dynasty, brought 15 Canada geese to his family’s estate. Rochester’s avian love-hate affair began about 100 years ago, when Dr. ![]() “Geese.” In Rochester, and in many other cities and suburbs, local geese have become almost too wild for human liking-largely thanks to decades of our own meddling. 1 complaint in parks since I’ve been here,” Paul Widman, the director of the city’s parks-and-recreation department, told me at Silver Lake Park last October, the sound of honking overhead. The city’s estimated 6,000 Canada geese regularly irritate their human neighbors with ill-tempered honking and steadfast production of up to two pounds of poop daily that foul parks and regularly close beaches. But also, sometimes, it can’t stand them. The city’s flag features three Canada geese flapping over the skyline.Ĭlearly, Rochester loves its geese. In our local newspaper, the movie reviews once issued ratings on a scale from zero to four honks. At amateur baseball games, Rochesterites cheer for the Honkers. Library Goose cosplays as William Shakespeare. A press pass hangs around Newspaper Goose’s neck. Throughout the town of Rochester, Minnesota, where I grew up, 18 themed goose statues (each an imposing 5 feet tall and 525 pounds heavy) stand sentinel.
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