Morning Read: Are these geese cooked?
Corrected: It’s carbon dioxide…not monoxide.
On Lake Champlain, it’s cormorants. In Watertown, it’s crows. And in Saranac Lake, it’s a big flap over geese.
An overabundance of the birds has sparked a controversy of sorts as Saranac Lake school officials plan to “euthanize” a flock of geese this June using a carbon dioxide chamber.
This from Chris Knight’s report in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise:
My concern is the kids,” said board member Esther Arlan. “That’s my top priority. It’s not the geese. And I’m not going to change my feelings.”
…
Former State Supreme Court judge and volunteer football coach Jan Plumadore listed the variety of diseases and ailments geese can spread through their droppings – bacteria like E. coli and viruses such as avian influenza – based on his own online research.
“Nobody wants to hurt animals, but it seems to me that this board took a very responsible and very informed vote last time,” Plumadore said.
Others felt that the risks were being overblown and argued that killing the animals is inhumane. “I don’t think it’s a good lesson for us to kill our problems,” said Mary Scollin, a registered nurse.
So what do you think? Are these big feathered pests that need to be thinned? Or do you shudder at the idea of gasing birds that chose the wrong field for their summer stopover?
Jeez, aren’t humans responsible for spreading more disease (and invasive species) than any other animals? I mean, come on Saranac; tuberculosis?
I hope they don’t come after me. I had giardia once.
I think it’s a lot more irresponsible to teach kids that the way to solve problems is with excessive and overwhelming force.
This ‘too many geese’ debate has been going on around the country for years now and there are plenty of solutions that don’t involve killing what bothers you.
It’s time officials did their homework and used common sense.
Geese can ruin an area with their excrement, one paddle to Shelburne Pond proved that to me.
Me no no. Me no care. Me just glad cows don’t fly.
“…based on his own online research.”
It must be true if the interwebs says it!
Why don’t they shoot them, freeze them and save them for underprivledged Adirondackers in the winter? Not being funny. They do it with deer struck by the side of the road. If you’re getting rid of them anyway and plan on tossing the carcasses, why not use them as food?
Why not let them be hunted, when hunted they will leave and geese taste good.
The larger issue is the problem of geese that are no longer migrating like they once did.
What I think is that if DEC really created this problem by doing releases to try to create a huntable population of geese, they’ve got some nerve charging the school district $2500 to fix their mistake.
By the bye, carbon monoxide would, I suspect, be considerably more humane– with CO, you just pass out. With CO2 I think you get a real panicky sense of suffocation.
What we need are more foxes, coyotes and maybe some wolves.
We get rid of predators and then wonder why things get out of balance.
What we need, is fewer people living on the goose pond, or maybe fewer people growing goose food on their property.
Pete has a good point.
I live in Broome County and geese have a big problem in the area. First, the entities all cooperated to come up with a plan — schools, town and county. Many professed no problems with any approaches to ridding themselves of geese problem: dogs to chase, euthansia, oiling the eggs etc.. A committee was formed at the county level. A large report was issued suggesting oiling the eggs so that there would be no new geese. Also, trained dogs were let loose at the county parks to try to disturb the nesting birds.
Important note — committee found no health threat from geese feces — just the “yuck” factor. The health commissioner could not find any evidence that disease is spread by goose poop.
So the “yuck” factor was really all there was.
This was 5 years ago and there may be more geese than ever before. However, the committee has stopped meeting and no more articles in the paper.
No one wants to eat them… but no one has been sick from goose poop.
If you step in some, let your shoes stay outside until you can dust them off.
Hey folks from saranac lake — the geese have laid their eggs — maybe next year start earlier and try to disturb them more when they are nesting.
Kill them. Seriously.
I don’t have any problem with them killing some of the geese. But it will have a negligible effect. I bet there will be the same number (or more) back on those fields next year. This is a serious problem without a good solution. But if flushing a few thousand dollars down the toilet makes them feel better go for it. How about adding goose hunting to the curriculum?
Is this new? It seems to me it is new from what I remember as a boy there were not Canadian Geese sitting around not migrating, but that is an unreliable method. I wonder if there is any research on this problem, maybe it has always been around but we just get more upset now?
Mervel, it’s my understanding that DEC created the problem goose populations in the state by trying to create goose-hunting opportunities. Forty years ago, Canada geese just passed through New York during Spring and Fall migrations to and from Canada. I remember seeing them in Vermont in the early 70s, when seeing them up close was rare.
But they’ll return to where ever they were born, so DEC managed to create a summer resident population, with the results we’ve all come to know and love.