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Blame Canada: Watertown's Geese Problem
Poop machines. That's what H2otown's dear departed Dad used to call Canadian geese. Except he used another word for poop. H2otown is certain that her dad would have been front and center for Wednesday's Canadian Geese seminar being held by the Watertown Health Department [See the calendar entry for more details].
The increasing number of Canadian geese on school athletic fields, parks, and recreation areas near the river -- and the fact that Canadian geese have never been potty-trained, has gotten more Watertown residents grumbling, "can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em."
Since it's H2otown's job to ask the stupid questions, I'll just plunge in:
Why can't we shoot Canadian geese?
Apart from the insanity of having a hunting season in a place where there are 8,000+ people per square mile, it turns out that Canadian geese are protected by federal law -- the US signed a treaty in 1936 banning the hunting of migratory birds.
The sticky point is this: Are Canadian geese really migratory anymore? The Department of the Interior, which oversees the treaty, has begun to allow limited hunting seasons in less populous areas, and egg addling in others.
But goose-related problems go beyond inconvenience and unsightliness (not to mention that creepy beady eyed stare they give H2otown, making her think that they'd happily peck her to death if they didn't have such a busy social schedule). The goose poop is connected with overfertilizing bodies of water like the Charles, causing extra plants to grow, that take up oxygen for fish -- and in the long term, turning ponds and rivers into stagnant algae-beds. Worse, Canadian geese can carry cryptosporidium, a waterborne parasite that can make people with compromised immune systems very sick.
Before we give that the shrug, we should reflect that this poop can cost big bucks -- pathogens from waterbirds was one of the things that triggered a high-profile lawsuit between the EPA and the MWRA, which provides much of Boston's drinking water. The EPA wanted to force the MWRA to filter for crypto and other pathogens, as well as build covered reservoirs.
Though the EPA lost, the MWRA has still had to spend a lot of money to make the water safe. Ever try to put a roof on a lake to protect it from goose and gull poop? Costs about $29 million. Treatment plants? Don't even ask!
Wednesday's seminar will feature a presentation by GeesePeace, which has run goose-abatement programs (here's a report about one they ran in Fairfax County, VA). Programs in other places have used volunteers to coat goose eggs in canola oil, which prevents them from developing and hatching, and following up with trained dogs to chase geese out of ponds and rivers.
They're "Canada geese", not "Canadian geese".
Can you make foie gras with Canadian Geese? For the uninitiated, foie gras is a French delicacy made from goose liver. Sold at high prices ($130/lb), foie gras distribution can be quite profitable. Now, what if society was able to divert some of the foie gras cash flow into the homeless population? What if we armed the homeless and sent them out to round up Canadian Geese and bring them to foie gras farms? Look at the positives here - you give the homeless jobs rounding up geese and tending to them at the foie gras farm. The sale of foie gras infuses cash into the government. The homeless will have a new source of food (as the only part of the goose needed to make foie gras is the liver). And lastly, the scourge of green spaces, the Canadian Goose, will no longer poop in our parks and ball fields.
There's been a goose hunting season (actually two seasons) for more than 20 yrs --- but you'll never see it in Watertown! I'll even bet that the egg-coating tactic will be criticized by the animal rights crowd.
You are right to ask whether geese have become indiginous -- indeed they have, and since their life span is 20 years, coating eggs is a LONG TERM solution.
Anonymous posts, in jest I assume, that we should capture these geese and put them on a foie gras farm. This query brings to mind the worst aspect of our indiginous goose problem:
Because (practically) all these geese eat is grass, they taste like...well, let's just say they
re not very good eatin.
how or where can i get 4-6 of these geese you all have?
I'm not sure, JR. I think if you came up to the Charles River and hustled some into a van no one would note that they were missing. But these geese are big, mean, and more dangerous than you might think, so getting them might be a challenge.
Also, the whole reason they're not hunted or collected is that they're protected under a treaty that bans hunting of migratory birds. And let me tell ya, a hunter would really stand out around here. I don't think I've ever seen anybody outdoors with a rifle or even a gun rack within 100 miles of Boston. Too many people around for hunting, and we have very strict gun laws.
I think there are places where you can get geese for farm raising. These are more domesticated, better tempered, and undoubtedly better eating.
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