BY JOHN KARRIGAN
I have various things I was going to write about before the Canada Goose disaster happened on June 24. Now I don’t know what to do.
Who knows who did what to take away and kill almost every Canada Goose of every age in the park. The Canada Geese obviously have quite a bit more common sense and intelligence than most members of the park board and various mean neighborhood people, or whoever had anything to do with this heinous act. I will be angry about this idiocy for quite some time, but I might find some good things to write about. At least I will try.
There are still very few songbirds or other small birds in the park, but they are doing well in many back yards. Along with all the usuals, Goldfinches, Cardinals, House Finches, English Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers and Hairy Woodpeckers, we are getting adult and young Robins and Chickadees.
The park is still doing OK, with Cormorants, Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Black-crowned Night Herons and, once in a while, Green Herons. And of course Mallards and Wood Ducks, young and old. The very young ducklings and some still hatching at the end of June are so light weight that they can sometimes walk easily over the green slime, of which there is way too much, on the water in late June. Or maybe the walking on slime on top of the water could be a biblical thing.
I thought the Cooper’s Hawks were going to have a successful nest this year but apparently something went wrong with that. I haven’t seen any young ones yet this year. Or there may be a late miracle.
Butterflies are doing OK in the park so far, with Red Admirals and yellow form Tiger Swallowtail being the most obvious. I have only seen one Monarch in the park so far this year. There will be a Monarch Butterfly Festival on Sept. 10 at Lake Nokomis.
Anyway, I love seeing flocks of Canada Geese flying over the yard, over the lake, or flying over or landing or taking off most anywhere. Maybe I will go to somewhere in the middle of nowhere where no people hassle or destroy birds, animals, reptiles or anything else. And so much for my helping to free the gosling caught in the netting which I wrote about last month!
Comments and observations are always welcome. Send them to me, in care of Southside Pride. Thank you.
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A Comment and Observation from Ed Felien:
There was a Geese Roundup on June 24, probably by Canada Goose Management of Cottage Grove. I have not received confirmation about this from either Marcia Holmberg of park board staff or from our Park Commissioner Scott Vreeland. However, Canada Goose Management is the only licensed company rounding up geese, and they are the company the park board has consistently used.
The DNR estimates there are 17,500 breeding Canada Geese in the Twin Cities. Canada Goose harvests from 600 to 2,000 each year. They are killed and butchered. The bounty on a Canada Goose has been from $16 to $20, according to recent contracts.
They are quite messy creatures. Their feces contain coliform bacteria and high levels of nitrogen. These are bad for water quality and for other living creatures in the park. They tear up the soccer fields and bully smaller birds for habitat. A swimming beach at Lake Calhoun was closed a couple of years ago because their E coli had polluted the water.
Park board policy seems to be, “If we didn’t thin the flock every year, we’d be overrun by them. They interfere with other living creatures enjoying the park.”
We have to balance our respect for sensible park management with compassion for living creatures that have somehow through no fault of their own become an inconvenience. The harvesting of the flock this month does nothing to diminish the compassion of John Karrigan last month in freeing the gosling. John’s act is still exemplary, even though the thinning is believed by our park board to have been a social necessity.
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A Comment from Park Commissioner Scott Vreeland:
The geese at Powderhorn tend to be geese that migrate. I am not aware of geese roundups at Powderhorn. We do need to control the population of non-migrating geese that can make parks unusable.
We actually track which geese are which.
And … Please don’t feed geese because it is in the long run neither good for them or us.
Each goose produces 1 and 1/2 pounds of poop a day and can impact human health issues.
