500K geese to be killed in The Netherlands

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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Officials in the Netherlands said Tuesday the country plans to kill more than 500,000 geese to control the population and limit damage to crops.

Provincial lawmakers signed an agreement, along with bird protection group Vogelbescherming, in 2011 to cull the geese starting in 2014, Dutch newspaper Trouw reported.

Vogelbescherming said it expected at the time that about 100,000 geese would need to be killed, but the plan now is to kill 200,000 ordinary Nile and Canada geese and 350,000 geese that no longer migrate but stay in the country year-round.

The nature organizations that signed the agreement said they will not protest the larger numbers. If the Netherlands wins EU approval for the plan, the mass culling should begin in 2014 as scheduled, Dutchnews.nl reported.

Most of the geese will be gassed, a method currently used at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Trouw reported.