ATTN: Canadians come get your geese

[TrogL]

They're pooping all over the parking lot.

Found this from a US poster on another website.

Yes, our big bird is pretty to look at, but smelly and vicious.

[rogerashton]

1. Goose anthem. (this is about New Jersey, not about Canada!)

Oh Canadas: Our Homely Native Goose
1985

News item: Canada geese, protected and fed, have multiplied to the point of becoming a year-round nuisance in some parts of New Jersey.

(To be sung to the tune of the Canadian national anthem, "Oh, Canada.")

Oh, Canadas: our homely native goose,
Though edible, you're no other earthly use.
In summertime, all geese should go to the "True North, Strong and Free,"
But all year round, through goose manure we tread most carefully!
God keep the geese -- gloriously free --
In Canada and far away from me!
Oh, Canadas, we scrape our boots for thee!

[iverglas]

2. very cute ;)

I've read that they're despised as far south as Texas. I believe they can be hunted there; don't know about elsewhere.

I'm old enough to remember when the survival of the Canada goose was actually considered to be precarious. I had that notion in my head even as I walked around Centre Island, in Lake Ontario off Toronto, 25 years ago, among the dog-sized green turds that blanketed the lawns.

Damn, what google can't tell you ... there are 5 (oops, 11?) subspecies of Canada goose. The Aleutian was upgraded from endangered to threatened by the US in 2001. The one we're talking about seems to be the giant Canada goose.

Here's the tale in brief (from a US perspective): http://www.hsus2.org/sheltering/magazine/currentissue/nov_dec01/feature2_article1.html

By the 1950s, the giant Canada goose was considered so endangered that some scientists began declaring her extinct. Branta canadensis maxima has rebounded so spectacularly, however, that in many places she’s become Branta non grata and is often maligned by those who consider her feeding and elimination habits a nuisance. ...

... Given a climate of such strong anti-geese sentiment, it’s hard to believe that as recently as the ’60s and ’70s, wildlife managers in the Midwest were still rounding up dwindling populations for opposite reasons—to establish new breeding flocks for hunters. When the breeding led to “excess” birds in certain areas, wildlife managers simply shipped them off to other states.

... Many of today’s manmade landscapes mimic the native environment of the giant Canada goose. One of 11 different subspecies of Canada geese, the giant Canada goose originates from the Midwest and is used to open, prairie-like areas, says Hadidian. Like the white-tailed deer, the goose has adapted easily even in busy areas; not even shopping mall retention ponds or median strips full of gourmet grass are beyond her range. The world of the urban Canada goose is a microcosm of the larger problem of a growing human population — and increasing human manipulation of the environment — on an ever-shrinking available land mass.

As usual, we have only ourselves to blame. ;)

[gula]

3. They are our only WMDs

Weapons of mass defecation