Popcorn Park Zoo: Don't Kill the Geese

Methods of controlling the township's rising geese population will be discussed before the Township Committee at its 7 p.m. Thursday meeting.

Recreation Director James Wioland will present proposals that range from harassment, egg and nest elimination to euthanization, an option that nearby Popcorn Park Zoo hopes isn't realized.

“[Killing geese is] really not a good thing to do,” said John Bergmann, general manager of Popcorn Park Zoo, a refuge for animals in need, including geese. “Public outcry is going to be pretty bad also.”

Wioland has said he's seen the most success with egg and nest elimination as well as euthanization, where a vendor could capture goslings before they are able to fly and eliminate them.

According to a non-scientific poll by Lacey Patch, 41 percent of voters support a combination of methods while 28 percent favor population control and 17 percent say to leave the geese alone.

“No one wants to see geese captured and killed,” Bergmann said. “We just hope it would never come to that. They should explore other avenues first and hopefully other avenues would work. The egg and nest searching is a good start so they don’t hatch out,” Bergmann said. “It won’t be an immediate solution but it would help down the road. Those steps are the best to take.”

Unfortunately, Popcorn Park could not assist in the situation by bringing geese to the zoo, Bergmann said. “There are too many, and they would just fly back.”

But the township did explore the possibility of having the geese transported to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, Administrator Veronica Laureigh said.

“It’s run through the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture),” Laureigh said. “It no longer an option in New Jersey because there’s such a dense population.”

The refuge confirmed that they are not open to receiving geese, refuge manager Virginia Rettig said.

“We definitely don’t move geese anymore,” she said. “We work with the state. It’s their program.”

The state Department of Environmental Protection has a control program that allows municipalities to apply to the Division of Fish and Wildlife for a permit to control the geese population when they are causing a threat to human health in lakes that are used for swimming, the website says.

The control techniques must be employed between April 1 and Aug. 31, and the state allows various methods of disposal from donating to museums to incineration.

“The methods Lacey is exploring are all common practices, as is the use of deterrents, such as dog silhouettes or live border collies,” said Brooke Masio, senior ecologist at the Center for Urban Restoration Ecology at Rutgers University. “Unfortunately, these methods are only band-aids.”

Two approaches that are gaining in popularity are the transformation of large expanses of mowed lawn to meadow habitats, and the planting of vegetation both in and around the fringe of stormwater retention ponds, she said.

“Not only do these measures reduce the attractiveness of these areas to Canada geese, but they offer so much more in terms of ecological function,” Masio said.

Although geese can contaminate land and lakes, they also provide an ecological benefit, Masio said. Geese aid other plants and animals by serving as seed dispensers, contributing to soil fertility by adding nutrients from their feces in moderation, and providing food to other animals.

“The fact is that we have modified the landscape in such a way as to promote the occupancy of these animals,” she said.

For more information on the positive benefits and negative impacts of geese, see the attached PDF.

Visit Lacey Patch on Friday, Feb. 24 to read about the outcome of the committee meeting.