Blame Canada...Goose

Gothamist enjoys a good game of "Duck...Duck...Goose!" every now and then, but we only really like Canada geese when they are flying in the air - because that means they are not on the ground, producing that really gross greenish grey poop. Central Park has a huge goose poop headache, as its goose population has grown from 30 to 300 over the past couple of years - and each goose can produce 1 to 3 pounds of poo a day. A day! Parks officials are worried that the goose waster will pollute lakes with their nitrogen-high poops - not to mention the usual worries of poop on walks. There are more geese staying in the mid-Atlantic region, instead of continuing South, because of global warming trends. Why didn't The Day After Tomorrow show the ill effects of big geese populations for scares?

The Central Park Conservancy's Neal Calvanese told the Daily News that one of the big problems is that people feed the geese. Has the Conservancy investigated the merits of the Goose Poop Buster?

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By Jen Chung in Arts & Entertainment on January 18, 2006 11:31 AM

Comments [rss]

John

In Seattle, Canadian Geese are a big pest. They are protected, so you have most parks literally covered with these dark peanut sized things from the geese.

The city in Seattle rounded up a bunch one year[and gassed them] but don't know if they were able to control the population.

NYC better do something, otherwise there is no way in heck you can lay down on the great lawn...without clearing an area first.

Canadian Geese, sea gulls and pigeons...darn pests!

Karen

Canadian geese taste pretty gamey, and are greasy to boot. We have them here, all year long, because the Erie Canal runs through town, and there are plenty of restaurant dumpsters and peoples' birdfeeders to rob. They look cool, the tourists like to take thier pictures (and I think the geese actually pose), but yeah, thier poop is messy, stinky, and...well, there. And, they are noisy when something is bugging them, and if their honking doesn't scare off whatever has them riled up, they can get nasty, and chase you. I don't even want to know what a ticked off goose will do to you, if it catches you.

And thats the news on geese, from Lockport...

Joe

Domesticated Geese = tasty.

Canada Geese = not so tasty.

Matt

Actually, the Canada Geese infestation has nothing to do with global warming, according to biologists. These aren't geese that have stopped migrating: they are the descendants of geese that were raised in captivity to serve as live hunting decoys (around the turn of the century), and escaped/were released. They never did migrate. The Wall Street Journal put a feature article on its front page explaining the whole thing earlier this year.