FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2 , 2010
TRI-LAKES GEESE REMOVAL SET FOR THIS MONTH
A plan to remove and euthanize up to 250 adult Canadian geese and relocate the goslings from Tri-Lakes this month has drawn the ire of many lake residents, and equally as many from distant locations.
CHRIS MEYERS
Staff Writer
Post and Mail, Columbia City, IN
A plan to remove and euthanize up to 250 adult Canadian geese and relocate the goslings from Tri-Lakes this month has drawn the ire of many lake residents, and equally as many from distant locations.
The opposition to the plan by the Tri-Lakes Property Owners Association has even reached across the globe with a Facebook site founded by Columbia City native and current Dearborn, Mich. resident Roy Sexton and his family. “Given the power of Facebook … I thought I’d give it a shot … it’s going like gang busters,” Sexton said of the page, which now has nearly 500 members. Many of those live far beyond the Tri-Lakes area and the shores of the lakes targeted for geese removal.
One resident opposed to the project, James Muston, lives in Karen Kove and, like others on the Facebook page from Tri-Lakes, welcomes the geese yearly. “You can sit here all summer and watch them teach their young to fly,” said Muston, who recently went to a sparsely-attended meeting about the project.
Like Sexton, Muston would like to see the property owners association look at other options listed on a DNR website about Canadian geese. The site can be found at www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3002.htm. “All I’m asking is, have they really explored all the alternatives … I’m not a biologist or environmentalist by any means,” Sexton said. For Muston, fences, wires and other methods to keep geese from yards should be tried first.
As for keeping them off the water, he also favors harassment and other techniques listed by DNR. “If people want to build on a lake … you’ve got to expect to have some geese and ducks,” Muston said.
He and others who have posted to the Facebook page concede they do have geese droppings in their yards, but it does not bother them enough to want the geese killed or removed.
Under the agreement the TLPOA has with a private company which will handle the work, the adults will be gathered and euthanized, and the meat sent to charitable organizations. The goslings will then be relocated. Geese can only be removed from private property during the round-up, which was scheduled for June because geese molt and cannot fly.
Health concerns are the primary motivation for the project, according to the property owners association newsletter and a past interview with association president Dave Miller. Geese droppings in the water and washed into the water from yards do have the risk of carrying pathogens for E. coli, salmonella, wisteria and other diseases, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
According to Shannon Winks, DNR’s urban wildlife biologist, hot summer months bring an increased chance of those pathogens being found in droppings. “It has pathogens that can be picked up by humans, so the risk is there,” she said, but added that research has not been able to definitively link any human illness to exposure to pathogens specifically from geese droppings.
Studies of Canadian geese show they eat about three pounds of grass a day and deposit about half that weight daily in droppings in the water or on land. Winks said droppings on land from geese, and domestic pets, can then wash into the water and deposit nutrients, in addition to pathogens. “We recommend not mowing to the water’s edge, or allowing a plant buffer to filter that material,” she said.
In addition to health concerns, droppings put more nutrients in lakes, which can increase plant and algae growth, which could affect drinking water. Farm runoff, yard fertilizers or leaky septic tanks also dump nitrogen and nutrients into lakes and can cause similar problems.
Although DNR issued the permit for the project at Tri-Lakes, the organization does not take a stand on the issue, and merely offers the permits as one of many options for geese population control listed on the website. “We try very hard to give as many options to private landowners as possible … one solution will not fit every lake,” Winks said.
Those other, natural solutions, are what many on the Facebook page, and Muston, hope to see. “Let’s don’t destroy what beautiful nature and wildlife we have,” he said.
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