Good morning,
Whitewater looks forward to a hot day, with highs in the upper eighties, and a chance of thunderstorms.
In Madison, state capital of America’s Dairyland, it’s not cows, but geese, that are on the minds of city officials. The Wisconsin State Journal reports, in a story entitled, “City Taking a New, More Scientific Approach to Geese Problem,” that this is
….part of an effort by the city to better understand its goose problem. A more deliberative approach was adopted mostly because of the furor that was raised earlier this year when word of a city plan to kill the geese in Warner Park resulted in contentious public meetings and a vote by the Parks Commission to forestall the roundup in favor of more research. The roundup had been approved by the Parks Commission because of a request from officials with the Dane County Regional Airport, who are concerned about geese colliding with aircraft.
The story includes a link to a video about the geese in Madison parks.
There’s no prediction in the story of what will come of the study, but observation before action is the very least one should expect of city officials, so careful observations make sense. The story notes that there are possibilities following on other communities’ efforts:
Included in the information being gathered by Hefty this summer will be approaches taken by other communities. On June 30, for example, workers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture rounded up geese on Delavan Lake near Lake Geneva and hauled them away for processing; the meat will be donated to food pantries. The USDA reports that it conducted more than 30 such roundups in Wisconsin in 2009.
But elsewhere, according to the state Department of Natural Resources, communities are using non-lethal methods of keeping geese away from public areas, including no-feeding ordinances, fence barriers, noisemaking devices, repellants or population-control approaches such as oiling eggs so chicks don’t hatch.
