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Canada geese are a highly social species who are abundant throughout urban and suburban regions of the United States. Many people are thrilled by their fascinating social interactions and ardent devotion between parents and goslings. Particularly because of their presence in urban environments, many feel that interacting with geese helps them to reconnect with the amazing diversity of a life in a rapidly vanishing world of nature.
Yet Canada geese are currently under a massive attack by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's program of roundup and gassing geese, which has killed tens of thousands of geese and threatens to kill many thousands more. Geese have been vilified and unfairly blamed for causing a range of problems from water fouling due to droppings and posing a danger to air plane travel.
IDA fervently believes any problems arising from geese can be handled peacefully and without causing harm. Join us in opposing USDA's annihilation program and demanding a harmonious co-existence between humans and Canada geese.
Background
Canada geese (Branta Canadensis) include a range of sub-species native to North America, all of whom suffered near extinction in the early 20th century. Hunting and habitat loss were the main causes of their decline and eventually led to the enactment of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) of 1918. The MBTA substantially regulated hunting of Canada geese and sought to preserve critical habitat.
With federal protections in place, Canada geese were afforded the opportunity to recover, making geese an appealing target to hunters. To cater to hunting interests, many state-run wildlife agencies actively bred and released resident Canada geese to increase the stock of available prey. Experts believe that overly plentiful resident flocks of Canada geese today are attributed to the stocking efforts by these agencies in the past.
Resident Canada geese find ideal habitats in which to thrive in urban and suburban environments. City parks, recreational areas, and golf courses offer large expanses of grass for foraging and ponds for swimming. The absence of natural predators in these manmade environments also contributes to the success of resident populations.
Canada geese are classified as migratory and resident (non-migratory) species. Those classified as migratory nest exclusively in Canada and winter in the United States, while resident Canada geese nest and reside in the United States.
USDA Assault on Canada Geese
While many people enjoy the presence of Canada geese at public parks and recreational areas, others consider them to be little more than a nuisance. USDA's culling programs include roundups of entire flocks of Canada geese at various locations across the U.S. The slaughter is conducted after adult geese have molted their flight feathers, their goslings have hatched, and the community is asleep. Away from the public eye, the USDA corrals the helpless geese and their young into small pens, uses plastic zip-ties to bind their feet together, and then shoves them into mobile gas chambers to be killed, or sends them elsewhere for slaughter.
Carbon dioxide is the standard gas used by USDA to kill the geese. Carbon dioxide asphyxiation is an especially cruel process that slowly strangles geese for many anguishing minutes as they struggle to breathe. It is far from humane, particularly because geese have capabilities to hold their breath for long periods while diving for food, so they die even more slowly than most animals exposed to this ruthless method of oxygen deprivation. Death by carbon dioxide asphyxiation must be ended immediately.
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| USDA Wildlife Services agents round up and gas Canada Geese in Seattle in 2002 |
Humane, Non-Lethal Population Control Alternatives
IDA vigorously advocates for humane, non-lethal population control programs rather than USDA's cruel and ineffective extermination regime that kills many thousands of Canada geese each year. And, paradoxically, the killing doesn't solve the issue of conflicts with humans, since other Canada geese quickly re-colonize the newly vacant territory.
* Landscape Design – Canada geese prefer specific habitat features, especially where molting of flight feathers and nesting is concerned. In areas where conflict between humans and geese is high, modifying and maintaining the landscape to reduce the appeal of a site to Canada geese is fundamental to reducing potential clashes.
* Birth Control using OvoControl-G - The USDA, Wildlife Services National Wildlife Research Center (WSNWRC) and Innolytics, LLC developed OvoControl-G, an oral contraception specifically for Canada geese. OvoControl-G is administered in bread-like bait and is a safe and environmentally friendly product that is fed to geese by hand or offered at bait stations prior to and during nesting season, which spans 10 weeks each year. OvoControl-G does not kill the geese—it simply prevents them from developing and laying viable eggs. Geese fed OvoControl-G lay fewer eggs, and the ones they do lay are non-viable and do not hatch.
OvoControl is registered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA - REG# 80224-5) and is available for use by city and federal government agencies, golf courses, and "pest" control companies.
The USDA WSNWRC has spent a great deal of money and resources on the development and refinement of OvoControl-G for Canada geese, yet for inexplicable reasons, is not taking full advantage of this valuable resource.
* Egg Addling – Eggs may be coated with vegetable oil, thereby depriving the embryo of oxygen and killing it. Addling requires involvement of multiple people to locate and monitor Canada goose nests. The breeding pair must be warded off while someone else coats the eggs with vegetable oil. This method has many disadvantages and is inhumane if done incorrectly. It should be used only as a last resort to killing.
* Border Collies – Trained dogs help to discourage Canada geese from molting and nesting at a target location. When geese attempt to land, the dog chases them away. The dogs are used during key periods each year to prevent reproduction of geese at a designated site.
Killing is Never the Solution
The killing of Canada geese is widely recognized as an unpopular, inhumane, and grossly ineffective population control strategy for the management of resident Canada geese flocks. The physical removal of Canada geese from their habitat results in repeated colonization by more geese, a process that begins almost immediately as other geese flying overhead are drawn to the attractive and uninhabited territory below.
Canada geese and humans can co-exist peacefully in these urban and suburban environments. The implementation of humane, non-lethal population control programs is an inspired and necessary means to that end.
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