BOSTON, June 14 (UPI) -- Doing the Canada goose two-step is becoming more of an irritating reality for many people in the United States.
Canada geese are magnificent birds on the wing, but fowl most foul on the ground.
Awesome in flight as they seasonally migrate north and south in V-shaped formations, Canada geese in increasing numbers are taking up permanent residence in some urban and suburban sections of the United States where they were never before seen.
And that has brought them into conflict with people who complain about having to step carefully to avoid the unsightly feces geese leave behind on lawns, meadows, parks, cemeteries, manicured corporate properties, walkways and golf courses.
In the wild, Canada geese have a varied diet of grasses, sedges, seeds, berries, and insects, while in suburbia the "resident" geese favor closely mown grass near small bodies of water.
A green lawn leading to a pond is the ideal habitat where geese can graze with little fear of predators.
Protected from hunters or being killed by the International Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 -- except as permitted by regulations -- it's as though the birds have found goose-paradise on Earth far from their traditional northern nesting grounds.
Most Canada geese fly south to winter in the United States and migrate north to summer breeding grounds in the Canadian arctic.
However, the availability of suitable urban and suburban open spaces has resulted in growing numbers of locally breeding geese that live year-round in the lower 48 states.
The federal government's wildlife management agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, estimates there are 3.5 million resident Canada geese in the United States, with the population growing.
Surveys suggest that the nation's resident breeding population now exceeds 1 million birds in both the Atlantic and the Mississippi flyways.
It wasn't too long ago that sighting a Canada goose on a local pond caused some excitement, but many communities now consider the birds a nuisance.
Over-hunting and mass killing for market at the end of the 19th century had driven Canada goose populations to near extinction. To protect those that remained, the 1918 International Migratory Bird Treaty Act was created.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, small groups were found at some refuges in the early 1960s, spurring federal and state efforts to rebuild populations.
Geese and their eggs were relocated to new areas where geese were not yet found. A prime reason for the growing human-wildlife conflict is that such relocated geese never learned the migratory habits of their ancestors, and instead remained year-round in urban and suburban areas.
Resident populations that do migrate often fly only short distances, compared to their migratory relatives.
Because of increasing complaints centered primarily around concerns regarding goose droppings, the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing new regulations to make it easier for state wildlife management agencies to take steps to control problem resident geese populations, including mass killings.
The basic argument for killing the birds is that goose droppings could threaten public health. But opponents say there is no scientific basis for that belief.
The Centers for Disease Control and other health investigators, for example, report no human illnesses linked to Canada geese.
"There's a lot of differences of opinion" about possible health hazards from Canada geese droppings, Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Ron Kokel told United Press International, but "there's no specific documentation of transmission of disease."
Proposals to kill Canada geese to control their numbers are opposed by several groups. The Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese, the U.S. Humane Society, and the Animal Alliance of Canada all urge non-lethal methods of control.
Coalition director Dr. Gregg Feigelson told UPI that the FWS "has done nothing to validate the severity of the problems people claim they have" with Canada geese.
Acknowledging that the birds can be "messy," Feigelson said the coalition would debate whether problems are as severe as some people claim He said there appears to be an ulterior motive for turning control of the birds over to the states.
He said state wildlife managers actually are driven by economics to push for mass killings, and their motives "have nothing whatsoever to do with solving problems" that some people might have with geese.
"They want to expand hunting opportunities," Feigelson said. "That's what this is all about. Most people have no idea how state wildlife agencies operate. State wildlife managers, their salaries are paid by fees collected on hunting licenses. There's a profit motive involved."
"That's not the case at all," Kokel said. "In most instances most places where these geese are, hunting is not an alternative, so that doesn't benefit the state as far as hunting revenue at all."
Feigelson said state wildlife managers "have been the worst" in terms of helping people use non-lethal methods to resolve Canada geese problems.
Such non-lethal methods include reducing grassy areas by planting large borders of ground cover geese do not like to walk through, allowing grass to grow taller, increasing the rough on golf courses, and passing and enforcing legislation prohibiting the public from feeding the birds in nuisance areas. Shotgun blasts, where feasible, and barking dogs would also help.
"We've never seen a case that couldn't be solved using non-lethal methods," Feigelson said, citing the success of one program that used cutouts of dogs flapping in the breeze to scare off the geese.
He said the birds have an innate fear of dogs that remind them of their northern predators, wolves.
The coalition argues that with little or no supporting scientific evidence, the Fish and Wildlife Service accuses the geese of not only posing a public health threat, but also compromising water quality, damaging crops, and overpopulating areas where they live.
The Humane Society said that in order to justify killing the birds, the Fish and Wildlife Service relies on the repeated use of "fraudulent, irrelevant or unsubstantiated information to create the false impression" that the public should be concerned about geese as a health issue.
Kokel said, however, that local and state health departments "are concerned. They're the experts."
Kokel said the Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to issue its new regulations in the fall.
A note of caution for anyone encountering an aggressive goose -- and they can become aggressive particularly while protecting their young. Experts advise people to maintain direct eye contact with the bird, face directly toward it, not to turn their back or shoulders away from the goose, not to squint, close or cover their eyes, and to back away slowly.
And for those who have wondered why Canada geese fly in a "V" formation, it is because the air to the side of a flying goose is smoother to fly in than the more turbulent air right behind.
(For more information, see the Web sites icu.com/geese; hsus.org; canadageese.org; migratorybirds.fws.gov.)
