Page 60 - Flathead Beacon // 4.2.14

60 | APRIL 2, 2014
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OUT OF BOUNDS Rob Breeding

Geese Gone Wild

I
REMEMBER WHEN CANADA river pining for birds, the seeds had dei-
geese weren’t everywhere. They nitely been planted.

seemed a little rare, in fact, a relic Today geese are often viewed as a
of a time when waterfowl were far more nuisance. They breed faster than rab-
scarce than today.
bits, and are increasingly giving up their
It may have been a matter of place. migratory ways for year-round resi-
I irst became fascinated with the birds dence on golf courses, parks and athletic
when I lived in Southern California. ields. It’s not so much their presence
There wasn’t much wildlife in the rolling that’s the problem – though if you’ve

desert hills from which our subdivision ever found yourself on the wrong side
had been carved. But not far from the of a gander guarding a brood of goslings
house were the bottomlands of the Santa you might think otherwise. Usually it’s
Ana River. The Santa Ana isn’t much to what they leave behind that’s creating
look at; the river is barely a muddy trick- conlict.
le meandering through thick stands of Geese are attracted to parks because
invasive non-native bamboo. Still, it re- they’re fond of eating grass. And what
mains an oasis of wild surrounded by goes in has to come out, eventually. All

metastasizing suburbia.
that poop has made the birds the bane
The Santa Ana became a favorite of ground crews across the continent.
hangout once I learned there were Cana- In Canada, growing populations of snow
da geese in ponds maintained for water- geese have decimated the bird’s summer
fowl at a nature center in the river bot- nesting range, over grazing it to dirt.
tom. I’d head over on winter days in my Lesser snow geese now number 5 mil-
T-shirt to watch the birds on their eve- lion birds in North America, a 300 per-

ning commute.
cent increase since the 1970s.
They appeared late in the day. From a I don’t know anyone who argues that
distance locks resembled black ribbons we’re still coming up short in the goose
lifted above the rooftops by the wind. As department. Check with the folks who
they grew closer the twisting ribbons survived US Airways Flight 1549, which
started to lutter with wing beats. Then, in 2009 sucked a lock of geese into its jet
as I began to make out individual birds, engines shortly after takeof from New
I’d hear them.
York’s LaGuardia Airport, then had to

It all seemed rather quaint. In the ditch in the Hudson River due to engine
middle of endless suburban sprawl, failure.
wildlife maintained a tenuous hold on In my mind, hunting is the preferred
existence. It’s what Jef Goldblum re- means for avian birth control. But the
minded us of in “Jurassic Park.”
Flathead Valley illustrates the challeng-
Life inds a way.
es to widespread goose population re-
I didn’t let the fact that those geese duction. Most of the best Canada goose
were lying back from their feeding
habitat is on private land. When the
grounds on the well-kept lawns of a Flathead consisted of larger farms and
nearby state prison spoil the narrative. access wasn’t the lashpoint for conlict
Actually it burnished the tale.
it’s become, that didn’t pose such a prob-
Fast forward a few decades and times lem. Today, however, it’s harder to get
have changed. Sure, back then I lived in access to a spot in a choice goose lyway, RUNNING CLUB $35/INDIVIDUAL
an urban wildlife desert, so the lofty or the large farms have been subdivided.
perch on which I set those jail breaking Canada geese seem unfazed by the

birds as a talisman for a wildness and presence of a ranchette on every 10 acres.
rarity was understandable. But the real- But don’t count on your neighbors being MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS INCLUDE:
ity is that if the goosapocalypse hadn’t unfazed if you start blasting birds from
already begun when I was sitting on a a blind just over the fence from their 10
bluf overlooking that bamboo-choked
acres of Heaven.
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