Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosThe Canada geese in Drake Park are stately to some a nuisance to others.
Dean Guernsey / The Bulletin
You think Bend's got goose issues? We're not alone
By Erin Golden / The Bulletin
Last modified: November 21. 2009 8:51AM PSTAfter years of frustration in the battle to control Bend's growing population of Canada geese, Bend Park & Recreation District officials can be sure of one thing: They're not alone.
Communities around the country have attempted to tackle their own goose overpopulation problems with wide-ranging strategies — some gentle, others lethal.
Some of those strategies have worked. Others have only made the problem worse.
As the district considers ramping up its efforts with lethal control methods, officials are taking a close look at the methods others have tried — and learning that there's no easy solution.
“One thing that I get out of talking with people is that no one thing is going to solve the problem,” said Paul Stell, the district's natural resources manager. “It has to be a multi-faceted approach and it has to be persistent.”
The number of geese in area parks has been a perennial issue for the district since the mid-1980s, when it started receiving more complaints about the birds and the messes they leave behind. Over the next two decades, district staff rounded up geese and took them to wildlife refuges outside of Bend, fed them birth control and coated their eggs with oil. But the population continued to grow.
In 2007, the district asked biologists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services Division to study the local goose population to determine how many geese were in the area and where they were living. This year, the biologists came back with a survey that said several hundred geese had made Bend their permanent home — and that killing some of them could be a good option for getting the population under control.
The lethal option
Earlier this month, the district held a public meeting, where the crowd appeared to be divided in its support for killing geese.
Some of the people who spoke at the meeting said they've seen the district try a variety of methods and spend a good deal of money — the cost of goose control work and cleanup is about $22,000 per year — and are open to the idea of trying something more serious.
Dewey Potter, a spokeswoman for Seattle Parks and Recreation, said Seattle was in a similar spot when it opted to start rounding up geese and euthanizing them with gas in 2000.
At that time, Seattle's parks were home to an estimated 3,000 geese — so many that county health officials adopted a resolution in support of lethal control methods because of health concerns related to goose feces. For three years, officials worked with the USDA to remove geese from the parks, while continuing other tactics, like oiling eggs.
Potter said the strategy worked. Today, officials estimate there are fewer than 1,000 geese in Seattle, but the backlash from animal advocates was enough to get the city to rethink its plans.
“We had huge, huge opposition from animal-rights organizations, the Humane Society of the United States and PAWS, the Progressive Animal Welfare Society,” she said. “We got bombarded with hideous, hateful e-mails (that said) they'd rather we died than the birds, and in fact, they demonstrated in front of the superintendent's house on the weekends.”
In 2003, the city agreed to work with the two organizations to institute a volunteer program for cleanup and control, with volunteers using dogs to help scare geese away. Potter said the methods have helped limit growth in the goose population, but over the years, the number of volunteers interested in working on a regular basis has dropped off.
In Puyallup, Wash., a city of about 36,000 people south of Seattle, officials tried putting out wooden snake decoys, trimming brush and other strategies before opting to kill geese in 2006.
Ralph Dannenberg, the city's director of parks and recreation, said the city had about 200 geese at the time. It paid USDA officials $2.50 per goose to capture approximately 180 geese, put them in canisters and transport them to a truck, where they were gassed.
Since then, the city has continued oiling eggs and using hazing techniques, but geese continued to return to the area. Dannenberg said there are now about 100 geese and the city is planning to do another round of lethal control in the near future. He said a few residents expressed concerns about the program, but most have been supportive.
“I think Washingtonians and Oregonians are pretty conscious of wildlife, but I honestly believe that when people see a month later, (the results of lethal control,) they'll understand why it had to be done,” he said. “As long as it wasn't the first step.”
Other methods
In some cities, dogs have become a major weapon in the battle with geese.
Stell said one of the cities he's looked to for information on nonlethal control methods is Rockford, Ill., which has been using trained dogs and handlers to scare geese for nearly a decade.
After years of problems with geese in parks along a stretch of river, the city decided to implement an aggressive program with several dogs spread out along the river, on the banks and in boats, said Jan Herbert, project manager for the Rockford Park District.
For five days in 2000, volunteers and dogs spread out along the river from dawn until dusk and by the last day, most of the geese had left the area, Herbert said. But as the district scaled down its efforts to fewer dogs during a smaller period of the day, the geese started to return.
After the initial experiment, officials decided to purchase two dogs and hire handlers to work in the parks and focus on oiling eggs. Herbert said the district began by oiling about 1,100 eggs the first year and steadily increased the number to about 2,400 in the fifth year. By the sixth year, the number of eggs began to drop, which Herbert said was a good sign that the work was paying off, though the district hasn't been able to calculate the exact impact.
Now, Herbert said she's trying to calculate the numbers and plans to ask her district's board to keep authorizing the same control techniques in the future.
“I believe it's going to show a progression of reduced numbers,” she said. “What we do know is there are some sites we no longer need to visit (for goose control work) — we've declared that a win. However, we have some big losers where the geese just will not give up the site. Apparently they've lived there a long time, and they're not going to give up their favorite spots.”
The Bend Park & Recreation District has also gathered input on nonlethal methods from the Humane Society of the United States, which has urged officials to step up its current efforts, rather than killing geese.
“Killing is a short-term solution that actually will serve only to really divide this community,” said Scott Beckstead, the group's senior state director. “It won't solve the problem. No matter how many numbers of geese they kill, more geese will just move in to kill that vacuum.”
Beckstead said he believes there are enough volunteers in Bend to oil eggs and use dogs to scare off geese to make a big difference in the population levels.
“If you do that methodically, stick with that program, geese get the message and they remember and they know where to stay away from,” he said of working with dogs. “We've seen it work in other communities. It's been very successful and it's a program that can really bring the community together.”
The district's decision
Stell said the issue probably won't be back on the district board's agenda until January. In the meantime, he plans to continue to meet with biologists to assess the situation and the potential impact of any goose control strategy.
Mike Slater, a USDA biologist who worked on the survey of Bend's geese, said he and others are still figuring out exactly how many geese would have to make an impact. But he said the goal is to get the geese that haven't been swayed by the district's other attempts.
“The simple idea here is we've got to take out those geese and try to target those geese that are the most acclimated to humans, and those geese that are the most acclimated are in those parks along the river,” Slater said. “Some of the geese have been here for years and years and nothing we do that is available to haze and harass will work. We know that because we've tried.”
Stell said other communities and wildlife experts are following what happens in Bend as they tackle similar issues of their own, so the biologists working on the issue are making sure to get all of the information they can before making a formal recommendation.
“This isn't just a Bend issue, it's a statewide issue,” he said. “But we're kind of on the point of the spear here, so they want to get this right.”
Communities around the nation have tried to chase away their goose population problems using remote-controlled boats, barking dogs, laser beams or chemical repellents. Some towns have tried to scare the geese away with wooden snakes, coyote decoys or colored balloons. Others have coated their eggs with oil or shaken them, and in a few cases, relaxed hunting restrictions. Bend is trying to learn from them.
Erin Golden can be reached at 541-617-7837 or at egolden@bendbulletin.com.
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