July 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 69

MAINTENANCE

Where Shall I Wander?
Parks remove the welcome mat for Canada geese
By Elizabeth Beard

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e're gonna be in the Hudson, " Captain Chesley Sullenberger of U.S. Airways flight #1549 calmly told air traffic controllers when both of the plane's engines became
disabled after " ingesting " Canada geese over New York
City in January 2009. Although no people were killed,
thanks to the now legendary water ditching of the plane, the " Miracle on the Hudson " has proven to have long-lasting consequences for local attitudes about managing the city's growing population of Canada geese. Culminating in the 2010 roundup
of hundreds of geese in Prospect Park in Brooklyn by the U.S. Department of Agriculture due to the park's proximity to both Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, attempts to
limit the number of geese in the city through lethal and even non-lethal means have
sparked controversy.
" There's over a million Canada geese
in the Atlantic Flyway currently, New York
and all the other Eastern seaboard states
collectively. A hundred years ago, we virtually had no resident population, " says
Bryan Swift, a wildlife biologist with the
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. " So in the last century we've gone from near zero to over
a million. In the past 20 years they've increased three- to four-fold. "
With the population's rebound came
an increased number of resident, or nonmigratory, geese. Swift recounts that
some of these geese originated with attempts in the past 60-80 years to establish
hunting or ornamental flocks, and many

thousands were released on Long Island
by their owners when the use of live decoys was banned in the 1930s. These
geese do not migrate into Canada during the summer but become year-long
residents wherever the habitat is suitable.
And suitable habitat is what parks
have in abundance. " They found everything they needed, from suitable nesting locations, not too much persecution
or predation by wild animals or humans,
and plenty of lawns as feeding areas that
give them a safe place to do their whole
annual cycle, " Swift says. " In the absence
of management, we would expect the
population to grow because there's just
so much attractive and suitable habitat,

whether its wild, natural wetlands out
in the rural landscape to the parks and
ponds and suburban habitat. "
Although increased hunting in rural areas has helped the overall Canada goose population to level off in the
Atlantic Flyway, geese in urban settings
present different challenges. In Prospect
Park, the 2010 National Audubon Society
Christmas Day bird count found 333 Canada geese in the 585-acre park, down
from 505 geese in 2009 before the USDA
culling. Prospect Park Administrator Emily Lloyd wants to avoid another culling
if possible, and also alleviate other problems caused by the geese.
" We want to keep the numbers of
Canada geese down so that they do
not end up competing with other species of waterfowl on our lake, the only
lake in Brooklyn, " Lloyd says. " There is
also the issue of all the excrement hundreds of geese produce and leave on
the sports fields and the pedestrian access points to the lake. Finally, if by controlling the population of geese at the
park we are able to reduce the likelihood that the USDA will need to cull the
birds, then our efforts locally are also
helping address the regional problem

Although increased hunting in rural areas has helped the overall
Canada goose population to level off in the Atlantic Flyway,
geese in urban settings present different challenges.

www.NRPA .ORG

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Parks & Recreation 67

July 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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