This week’s letter comes from Foster Fell, local goose champion, who makes a good case for staving off the goose execution in Bend. Thanks for the letter, Foster. We appreciate your taking the time to put your thoughts down on paper – so much so that we’re hooking you up with a bag of coffee from Strictly Organic, which we can assure you is goose-suffering free. You can pick up your winner’s spoils at our office, 704 NW Georgia. – the editor.
Wildlife rescue work this month will not be limited to the Gulf of Mexico, but will require local efforts to prevent the unnecessary euthanization of many of Bend’s Canada Geese by the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District.
Earlier this spring BMPRD announced its affiliation with the respected organization Geese Peace. Its national program director David Feld traveled to Bend to conduct further training in non-lethal population control methods.
Mr. Feld stated he was impressed with the leadership and effectiveness of the ongoing program, which had already resulted in fewer hatched goslings this year alone and in an overall stabilization of the goose population.
He had additional suggestions for enlisting more partners in the nest and egg depredation aspect of the program and, thus, for developing a more comprehensive, wide-ranging effort.
Rather than following these recommendations and building on the success already achieved, BMPRD now feels the sudden and baffling necessity to sidetrack the effective nonlethal work of its own employees and seek a permit to kill geese in the remaining few weeks of molting season this month.
Fortunately, this “emergency” kill permit may not so easily be gotten, as it requires permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As of June 23, the Portland USFWS regional office reported that it had not yet received a request by BMPRD. David Williams of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Service stated in a phone conversation on June 24 that his agency does not have the authority to issue a kill permit on its own, contrary to the implication in The Bulletin article (page 1, June 23, 2010).
Many of us who have chosen to live in Central Oregon are here for the joys and peace and mysteries of the natural environment. We can walk this earth in harmony with wildlife. The dedicated goose control team of BMPRD is showing the way to a humane coexistence with wildlife. Let them do their work without resorting to unnecessary killing of the geese.
Visit my Facebook page: Uncle Goose.
– Foster Fell, Bend
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.
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I think what Ed Moore did (BMPRD Manager) was disgusting. How would he like it if we terminated something that brought his kids joy? When I contacted him this morning he said “he has been in this city for 6 years and is proud of his decision”. “There is too much poop in the park”, was his reasoning for killing the geese from what he told me. Well, if that was the case, why is the park on a daily basis used by locals and tourists alike? They don’t seem to mind the poop! Anyone who lives here knows the poop comes with the park and have come to accept and deal with it. Its unfortunate that those comming in from out of state get to dictate our local community for us. I urge everyone to call him and give him your oppinion. His phone number is 541-388-5435 (which is public information).
I drove past Drake park the day after the geese were herded up and killed. There still appeared to be two hundred geese lounging about.
Mandie, i grew up on a farm and walking through animal excrement was as much ‘fun’ then as walking through Drake Park now. The so-called ‘wild’ geese are as much a problem as the flying rats we call pigeons, They are fine when man doesn’t interfere–they have a natural sense of the true order of things. Feeding them attacts more, encourages them to stay instead of migrate, and generates ever increasing numbers that cannot be sustained naturally.
I would bet that the very people likening this slaughter to ‘executions’ and ‘a holocost’ are among the very same people who helped create the problem in the fist place.
I’m all for nonlethal methods of mitigating the overpopulation of geese. So far, the only methods I’ve heard of is relocation, which failed. Blindfolding geese? Geese don’t use eyesight to navigate. They use magnetic fields. What other possibilities are there?
Foster has incorrectly pointed out that the geese are wildlife. If they exist in a human domain for an extended period of time, they turn into an altogether different creature. I’d argue parasitic.
People can only blame themselves for the overpopulation of geese. Overfeeding geese confuses them into trusting mankind. You just don’t do that with any animal unless they’re domesticated. And even then, you don’t do so unless you ask the owner. Feeding the geese delays their migration. Canadian wildlife agencies note “Feeding attracts other geese to an area, adding to the problem of too many geese. Food given by humans is generally less nutritious and reliance on handouts can lead to malnourishment and possible mortality. Providing food often delays migration, resulting in added stress and mortality to geese.” It goes on to say that large populations of geese damage and destroy park grass, lawns, golf courses, and even agricultural crops.
Geese and bird populations in general are much higher than wildlife norms for our area. That’s because humans leave waste and reconstruct the natural landscape. Because we interfere with the natural landscape with our settlements, it’s our responsibility to manage the populations that take advantage of it. An overabundance of geese is not in balance with nature.
There’s a reason why mankind invented the sewer system. Because having feces everywhere was detrimental to our health. Why is it suddenly okay to revert to the old ways of having feces in a park where people commune?
I’m opposed to unnecessary killing, but to allow the geese to overpopulate is ridiculous. Following that logic to it’s conclusion, you’d have geese taking over the entire park (and beyond) and flooding out into the streets causing car accidents. As it is, they’ve already impeded traffic. The park belongs to man and if the geese have a problem with it, there’s always plenty of other lakes and rivers they can move to.
I do believe geese add to the beauty of the park. However there is a threshold in which they start to detract from the beauty of the park. For half of us in Bend, that threshold was passed prior to the gasing of the geese.
Geese inhabit our home at their own peril. So do the deer and other woodland critters.