Community Corner

Those Pesky, Endearing, Superfluous Geese

Are Nyack and Piermont's Canada Goose population a problem?

You can admire them from afar. Or go out of your way to mend their wings and clean their feathers, or take up the morbid-but-popular dictum "Gas 'em!" or, heck, remain resolutely apathetic.

Regardless, you can't ignore Nyack and Piermont's sprawling Canada goose population. If there's a shoreline—or even a patch of grass—there's a gaggle.

The most heavily populated areas? The Nyack Marina. Piermont's Flywheel Park. Memorial Park. Any park, really.

Find out what's happening in Nyack-Piermontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

And though the Canada goose has proved to be a nuisance, village authorities have not been forced to take aggressive action.

"We've never had to do anything in Nyack, but they are a problem in Memorial Park," said Richard Kavesh, Nyack's mayor.

Find out what's happening in Nyack-Piermontwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Parents do complain about Memorial Park and the amount of feces there, and that it obstucts their children's playing," he added.

The case is similar in Piermont—village officials said they've never taken action, but the excrement in Flywheel park can be problematic.

Some Flywheel regulars don't mind the mess, though.

"We should appreciate that they choose to land here," said Don Bracken, a Palisades resident that frequently walks his dog in the park.

"It says something about the environement—it's nice enough to attract them."

And though Piermont and Nyack have chosen to take a laissez-faire approach to dealing with geese, neighboring municipalities have not. In June of 1996, the Town of Clarkstown rounded up and killed 251 geese. Then-town supervisor Charles Holbrook said the decision was reached because the goose droppings posed a threat to children playing in the area.

But Clarkstown's reaction was not unwarranted or out of character.

"The Canada goose can be quite the nuisance species," said Joel Brown, a professor of ecology at the University of Chicago, in a recent interview with Patch. "They produce a phenomenal amount of droppings. And they've become incredibly successful in places of human habitation."

Brown noted environments like Piermont and Nyack provide year-round food sources and a benign place to live. Hence, they're here to stay, and many have stopped migrating altogether.

"Their impact is unsightly," Brown added.

(Another interesting bit: they nearly disappeared altogether in the 1960s. "They were almost hunted to extinction because they taste so good," Brown explained).

This story comes on the heels of New York City's Clarkstown-like approach to dealing with encroaching geese: netting, followed by gassing, as reported last month in the New York Times.

The Times piece's author, James Gorman, played devil's advocate: "[Not] much of a case be made for the ecological importance of geese, since the environments [they inhabit] are artificial, and designed for human benefit."

Brown agrees the Canada goose doesn't always abide by an ecological quid pro quo—but he's wary to promote NYC's, or Clarkstown's, tactics.

"The most direct approach to dealing with the geese is culling," Brown explained. "But some people find it unacceptable."

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So, how can goose-haters combat gaggles without getting messy? Professor Brown offered some harmless methods for goose control:

  • Canine control: training a dog to chase and harass geese will create a hostile environment—one they're likely to leave behind.
  • Landscape modification: put up obstacles—like plants or lines strung from trees—to break up fields and impede the geese landing and take-off areas.
  • Egg addling: find the geese nesting sights and shake the eggs, terminating the offspring (okay, this one's a bit messy).


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