Getting Rid of the Byrd Park Geese

As an animal rights oriented Byrd Park resident, I was a little ambivalent about the plans for goose herding using trained dogs. Apparaently, this is set to take place on Monday. However, I got an email from a civic-minded nature-buff that won me over (see below). And I thought I'd contribute my own thoughts.

First, here's the announcement, from my Civic League prez:
On Monday the City's Parks Department with its contractor will be running the trained Border Collies through and around the Roundhouse and Swan Lake. These dogs are specially trained to chase ONLY THE CANADIAN GEESE. The domestic geese and ducks will not be chased. These dogs are highly trained to simply being used to push the nuisance Canadian geese out of the Park. This "chasing" will be occur again on a regular basis with the goal of encouraging the Canadian Geese to begin to migrate.

NO GEESE WILL BE HURT IN THE PROCESS. Please remember that these geese are SUPPOSED to migrate and have been living park now for several years.

My thoughts in brief:
First, my house had pigeons roosting (and popping) all over the eves of my porch and windows for years. We constantly heard their racket inside. One day, I brought home a tube of "tangle foot" pigeon deterant and squirted the stuff on every window sill. I've never heard from them since! And I have no remorse. They've got wings and can make their home almost anywhere. I wouldn't kill a bird for food, but I'll put some sticky stuff on the bottoms of their feet if it means less poop and more peace. The Moral: Deliver your message to the birds in a language they can understand and they'll change their behavior.

Second, I walk my dogs around the lakes in Byrd Park, mostly sticking to the sidewalk. The whole way, the dogs have their nose to the ground, scooping up disgusting green goose poop with gusto. Blech! I hear that the birds can sometime have parasites that can be passed through their feces. Either way, it can't be healthy dietary supplement and it's just bad form for a house dog. Of course, my little black pug would probably trade his poop scooping habit for a chance to chase some birds in Byrd Park. The moral: Byrd Park will be soooo much better when you don't have to watch your every step to avoid stepping in slimey green pile of crap.

From Byrd Park's resident naturalist:
Just a brief comment for the people who are concerned about harsh or discriminatory treatment of our Canadian geese with the border collies. I'm not representing any group, but am writing this strictly on my own. This issue hasn't received much full attention yet in our media, so many people haven't received much relevant info. We had a helpful in depth presentation at a recent Friends of Wm Byrd Park meeting by Christy Everson from Rec & Parks on how and why this program with the border collies will help get the 300 Canada geese out of our park. The number of these geese has increased dramatically in recent years as they've stopped and stayed here instead of migrating south. Each goose leaves 1.5 lbs of droppings per day. Do the math for 300 geese X 365 days and you'll see this amounts to 164,250 pounds of rather large droppings per year, on sidewalks and grass, which are unhealthy and messy. One example: I've recently been talking with people over at the VA Home on the east side of WBP and when their residents go out on the nearby sidewalks near VH and next to Swan Lake, when they come back inside the treads of their wheel chair tires are often full of goose droppings.

Last year I attended a presentation by the owner of a local professional group of border collies who do precisely this type of work. The border collies are highly trained to chase them until they persuade the Canadian geese to leave the park and live somewhere else. They do not harm the geese in any way. Many cities with geese problems have used border collies to deal very effectively with this problem, like Manhattan to get the canada geese out of Central Park. Search the Internet for "border collies and canada geese" and you'll find many examples.

I hope some of this info helps put this topic in a bit of perspective.