Waterfowl growth concerns officials

RALEIGH -- Christina Mage and her 2-year-old twins stood on a bridge over Shelley Lake last week tossing bread crumbs to a squawking hoard of Canada geese and a few intimidated ducks.

Mage, 41, has been coming to Shelley Lake for years, but lately she has noticed geese far outnumbering ducks.

"These are the laziest geese," she said. "I mean, if I were them I wouldn't leave."

Raleigh's geese have it good, and that has become a concern for city Parks and Recreation officials charged with keeping parks and lakes clean. The department is conducting a census to gauge the number of geese, seagulls and ducks that inhabit Raleigh lakes at various times of the year. The census will be used to develop a management plan designed to keep fowl from overrunning Raleigh parks.

It's the latest in an increasing number of goose-human confrontations in North Carolina. Throughout the East, the population of urban geese is on the rise, though researchers are just beginning to study why.

Chris DePerno, an assistant professor in N.C. State's Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, said current estimates put the number of urban Canada geese along the East Coast at 600,000. In some places the population grows 10 percent a year, he said. Such numbers only magnify the unique abilities of geese.

"Geese can defecate like 30 times a day," said DePerno, noting that the average dry weight of each dropping is greater than a gram.

Scott Payne, Raleigh's recreation superintendent for operations, has done the math. He said an adult goose can produce between one and three pounds of droppings a day.

"You put that in a concentrated area -- 20 to 30 in one location -- you've got yourself a mess," he said.

Just how big a mess Raleigh's resident geese are leaving behind is unclear. The birds have been accused of everything from dispersing noxious weeds to contributing to algae growth in lakes.

Snowbirds

DePerno said N.C. State recently received funding for two geese studies. One will test out a new spray repellent. The other will attempt to determine how many Canada geese have become snowbirds, relocating for extended periods to sunny North Carolina.

At Lake Wheeler, for example, park employees have counted 20 greylag geese, a domestic species considered problematic because it does not migrate.

The city is still a long way from forcibly removing geese and other species from its parks, a move that requires the approval of the City Council.

"I couldn't say we're going to go in and have every species removed," said Richard Costello, who oversees lakes for the city parks department.

Migratory species such as Canada geese are federally protected, which means a permit is required to kill them or destroy their nests and eggs.

In recent months, however, federal officials have relaxed the permitting requirements and extended the hunting season for Canada geese. The goal is to make it easier for local communities to deal with meddlesome geese populations.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 150 permits were issued to kill geese or destroy eggs in North Carolina for the year ending March 31. That was triple the number of permits issued over the previous year.

Many golf courses and colleges throughout the Triangle have been dealing with unwanted geese for years. One popular method that stops short of forcibly relocating or euthanizing the birds is to use border collies to harass them into leaving.

DePerno said that solution doesn't work for everybody.

"Collies can get bored," he said. "It's also very expensive."

Part of the challenge for Raleigh officials is that goose management is also people management. More and more geese are making North Carolina their permanent home because we give them little reason to leave.

"We have found [instances] when it looks like a truck had come through and dumped bread," Payne said.

Even geese and duck feeders such as Christina Mage seem aware that we humans are sending mixed messages.

Mage admits the geese are big, dirty birds whose droppings make areas of the park smell like sewage on hot and humid days.

"And here we are feeding them," she said.