Canada Geese painting by Ed Newbold
What's the real poop on the The Canada Goose debate?
There's a debate simmering in the Northwest and other parts of the continent about geese. In Ed Newbold's view, the reason we are having the debate has less to do with the merits or demerits of the Canada Goose than it does with the "funding ecology" of a particular bureaucracy.
First 2 points of biological background:
#1 The Canada Goose is a grazer.
This basic fact is often left out of even lengthy discussions about Canada Geese.
John K. Terres, in the Encyclopedia of Birds, writes of Canada Geese, “…are essentially grazers and with bill crop marsh grasses, fresh blades of sprouting winter wheat in upland fields in spring also eat bulrushes, glasswort, salt grass, borme grass, clovers, saltbush, cattails, and other plants…”
The reason Canada Geese did not breed in the lower 48 states is that there used to never be young grass shoots that were dependable throughout the breeding season . The advent of the lawn mower and lawn-irrigation changed all this. Geese need grass, and they need it to be growing new shoots throughout the breeding season, so the grass must be mowed and in areas that experience dry summers, like the Northwest, must be watered. Some government biologists claim that Canada Geese are only here because they were settled by various programs operated by various game depts. In my opinion this disrespects this bird's intelligence, adaptability and mobility. With all the wonderful habitat (grass lawns) we've provided them, I have no doubt they would have settled here with or without government relocation programs.
geese doing what geese do, photo by Ed Newbold
#2 The Goose is a special kind of grazer, a sort of "Speed Grazer"
This is a point made by John Attenborough in his famous six-part TV series on Birds. Unlike other grazers such as cows, the goose does not have a major processing plant inside its body because unlike a cow, the goose has to be light enough to fly. Without a ruminant's four large stomach chambers, the goose must process what little bit of nutrition it can get out of each blade of grass in a hurry, and then quickly jettison it all out the back. Because the goose gets less nutrition from each blade of grass, it must eat proportionately more, so the goose basically is a high-speed grass-processor-and-ejector. Because the grass is so lightly processed, goose poop is exceedingly un-smelly, and basically benign and pleasant compared to fecal matter of humans, dogs, cats, and even other grazers like the aforementioned cows. That's also why, despite the innuendos of the agencies involved, there aren't a lot of pathogens associated with goose poop. It's almost comparable to grass casings held together by saliva. When goose poop has dried, you can lay a beach blanket on it and read a book. Try that with dog poop sometime--you'll have a hard time concentrating on the storyline. Journalists who dutifully report the quantity of goose poop—up to 3 lbs a day—are thus only telling the bad-half of the story and are effectively propagandizing for the agency that wants funding to kill geese. The casual newspaper reader thinks “3 pounds of poop, oh my gosh, that's awful.”
Why do we have goose-killing programs?
Geese divide our population. Some people could care less about them, others love them and cite their stately appearance, intelligence, and fierce loyalty to mates and protectiveness of their young. Some hate the poop, fear their very presence, and wish they were all dead. With such a split, why doesn't government want to take the easy route and do nothing? Instead, it sides with one group, the “antis” and launches PR campaigns and organizes labor intensive goose-killing programs to please them while totally ignoring the wishes of the “pros”? The reason is not the one most journalists have seen, it isn't in the irate complaints of the occasional fed-up suburbanite. Instead of focusing on politics or goose-ecology, we must look at a different kind of “ecology:” the ecology of bureaucracy and need of government agencies to preserve and expand their mission.
Look what is happening to Wildlife Services, the agency inside the Dept. of Agriculture that is charged with killing and controlling the wildlife pests of agriculture:
The above figure is not factual or based on data, but it shows exactly what has been happening in post-World War II America.
Light Green is the “natural habitat” of the Wildlife Services Agency, and the trend shown amounts to writing on the wall for the agency's long-term budget future. With a constantly contracting area of agriculture in much of the United States and in Western Washington in particular, funding for the Wildlife Services bureaucracy would normally be expected to decrease long term. In order to avoid lay-offs, budget contraction, reduction of importance and even ultimate extinction, Wildlife Services must identify and create a job for itself in the increasing orange area, the suburbs. This is why we have the Goose Wars. Thus we have been manipulated into a nonsense debate--of course we shouldn't kill the geese, roughly half the people love them. But an easily duped corps of journalists continues to trumpet the agencies' propaganda and the to-kill-or-not-to kill debate drones on.
But if we do eliminate the Goose killing programs, and reduce the budget of WS, won't there still be a legitimate problem of Goose over-abundance?
The elimination of the goose killing programs and the reduction of the unscientific “Wildlife Services” agency would save us money and reduce irritation in all our lives. But yes, there is still an issue. Canada Geese are great, but do we want to be knee-deep in them? No. The answer, however, involves no tax money at all and is completely win-win. It involves allowing brush, shrubs and successional vegetation to grow up in areas that are now grass lawn. Certainly there are places where grass lawn is desirable, but grass lawn is currently pervasive and is now the default in landscaping choices. It shouldn't be for many, many reasons. For one thing, grass lawns lead to the use of chemical fertilizers which are now implicated in the creation of, among other things, “dead zones” in places like the Hood Canal . In the Northwest, grass lawns turn brown immediately in a normal summer if they aren't irrigated, so the aesthetic argument for them, already wrong, is further impaired. A reduction of grass lawn will also lead to a reduction of three other species of birds whose abundance is not always desirable: the American Crow, the European Starling and the House Sparrow. All three use grass lawn primarily for foraging and their abundance may be a factor in the rarity and extirpation of species like the Common Nighthawk, Band Tailed Pigeon, Chipping Sparrow, Western Bluebird, Lewis's Woodpecker and various Hirundinidae species (swallows.)..
photo by Ed Newbold
A huge mowed area on the grounds of a lighthouse north of Tacoma, WA. However, I could have shown (picked on) many many examples of management that exhibit this destructive form of landsaping.. When land managers mow extensive areas, they cheat and extinguish embattled wildlife while aiding over-abundant species such as Canada Geese, American Crow, European Starling and House Sparrow (this list applies in the Puget Sound area)
Addendum
Moreover, the reduction of watering lawns that has already occurred due to the cost of water and the ever-present threat of drought, plus the reduction of lawns in some places, has already reduced habitat for Canada geese around Seattle from their high points in the 70s and 80's, and it's no longer clear that geese populations are even in a major longterm upward trend at this point in our area.
Conclusion
So everybody, relax, and enjoy the geese, but don't set the table for them. Reduce those expansive and aesthetically boring stretches of grass lawn. It'll be easier to see how beautiful Canada Geese are if there aren't unnatural numbers of them.
Well, thanks everyone for reading this. Gotta go now. It's a rare hot day in Seattle (at least for this summer) and Delia and I are going to go down to a beach on Lake Washington to lay on some old goose poop. July 17, 2005 –Ed Newbold