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magazine / mj98
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May/June 1998 issue |
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FEATURE
What’s good for the goose?
There will be no quick fix in the territorial wrangle between
Canadians and Canada geese
By Elizabeth Shilts with photos by Wolf Kutnahorsky
Shirley Bond has nothing nice to say about Canada geese. During her 20 years
along Lake Ontario in Mississauga, the geese were regular visitors to her
waterfront yard and to neighbouring Hiawatha Park. Flocks sunned themselves
on her shoreline rocks or waddled around her patio and lawn, littering them
with "cigars," as she calls goose droppings. The birds meandered to the park
where their endless feeding mottled the sod with bare patches. As her children
grew, she tried to protect them from the nips of aggressive geese. She still
worries about the health risk for children who play in the park’s sandbox. "It
angers me to no end to see these doggone birds pile into the playground," she
says.
Resident maximas and migrating interiors
All geese are not created equal. Those wreaking the most havoc in Toronto
are the largest subspecies of Canada goose — the giant Canada goose (Branta
canadensis maxima). They are also known as resident geese since they
breed and nest locally. When Toronto freezes over, some migrate to the slightly
warmer American side of Lake Ontario or outside city limits where harvest
leftovers lie in fields. After the spring thaw, many resident geese that are
old enough to fly but too young to breed as well as some failed breeders —
all known as moult migrants — head to James Bay for the summer.
There is only one recognized species of Canada goose, but there are enough
differences among North American populations that biologists distinguish anywhere
from 11 to 188 subspecies — an issue "scientists have argued about for 50
years," says Jim Leafloor, a waterfowl biologist with the Ontario Ministry
of Natural Resources in Cochrane, Ont.
"The birds encounter different environments depending on where they were
raised," says Leafloor. "They adapt to local environments and thus look different." In
general, he says, Canada geese are largest in southern populations and become
progressively smaller in northern populations.
Some conservation biologists agree that hunting is the most effective way
to decrease overabundant wildlife populations, so some regions are changing
the timing of their hunt to coincide with the movements of giant Canadas.
In Ohio and Michigan, for example, bag limits for Canada geese were raised
early in the hunting season to target giant Canadas, and early goose seasons
have been established in southern Ontario for the same reason.
Some migrant populations, such as the slightly smaller subspecies B.
canadensis interior, are decreasing since they face growing competition
in their summer nesting range along southern James Bay. Already scarce food
resources are being depleted by unprecedented snow goose populations (Anser
caerulescens) and, to a lesser degree, by giant Canada goose moult
migrants. Increased hunting of northern birds may further diminish migrant
geese in central North America. But many people wonder whether we should
care. There seem to be enough Canada geese around that their survival as
a species is far from threatened.
Leafloor says it is important to conserve subspecies since greater variety
can help the long-term survival of the species as a whole. "Diversity is good
since more diverse populations can withstand catastrophic events."
- E. S. |
But last fall, when Bond’s yard typically would be overrun by up to
35 geese, nary a honk was heard. Occasionally four or five would fly along
the shore, but none came to her lawn. "I was happy to see them go," she says
of the 2,000 geese shipped to wetlands in New Brunswick in June 1997 in an
attempt to control expanding populations in Mississauga.
Bond’s optimism may be premature. The solution seemed simple enough:
ship the pests off to a distant, remote new home, clean up the droppings on
the lawn, and presto! paradise found. But was it?
Wildlife management is practically an oxymoron when it comes to Canada geese.
Deportation is just one of many schemes that have been attempted with limited
success. As goose-laden communities become increasingly desperate, wildlife
managers are considering more drastic measures, including culling, suffocating
eggs, and even vasectomizing ganders. A broad, long-term strategy is being
developed, but there will be many more "cigar"-littered lawns along Lake Ontario
before geese and humans settle into peaceful co-existence.
For many residents of greater Toronto, the honkers flying in V-formation
are no longer a sentimental symbol of the passing seasons, but the first sign
of an onslaught of noise, droppings and damage. Southern Ontario has always
been a stopover for populations of Canada geese migrating between their wintering
grounds in the United States and their vast nesting grounds in Northern Canada.
But overhunting in the late 1800s and early 1900s almost wiped them out. Now
the birds have become a continent-wide problem wherever urban shorelines and
goose flyways intersect.
When the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources reintroduced Canada geese
(Branta canadensis) across southern Ontario beginning in 1968, the
project was heralded as a wildlife management success: people welcomed the
majestic, white-cheeked birds back to Toronto. But it soon became apparent
that wildlife managers had created a monster: fuelled by a ready food supply
and safe from hunters, the goose population stopped migrating and began to
double every five years, reaching an estimated 250,000 birds in southern Ontario
by 1997, concentrated between Hamilton and Oshawa. Today, municipal and wildlife
officials are trying everything in their power to discourage geese without
discouraging people from using urban green space — a tricky balance
since geese and humans are drawn to the same places for the same reasons:
secure, manicured lawns and waterfront vistas.
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