Long Island Hidden Histories and Mysteries

If you have walked, driven, pedaled a bike or rowed your boat on Long Island in the last decade, you’ve likely noticed that there are a lot of geese around. They inhabit golf courses, sports fields, playgrounds, lakes, ponds and every place in between. But where did all these geese come from? What’s being done to control their population? Why don’t they fly south for the winter? Or just fly south

for good? In short, what’s the deal with

the geese?

Origins of the resident goose population

The geese Long Islanders contend with on a daily basis are of the species branta Canadensis, or giant Canada goose, an animal distinguished by its stature, creamy breast, long neck and distinctive white chinstrap. While it may appear to us that the geese cluster with exceptional eagerness on Long Island, they are, in fact, a presence in every state except Hawaii and have

even crossed the pond to England and

its neighbors.

In some senses, the Goose boom is a conservation success story. In others it’s another disaster on the Venn diagram depicting the overlap between humans and animals. According to “The Geese That Came In from the Wild,” by Jack Hope in a 2000 issue of Audubon, the Canada goose was rarely seen in the U.S. until the 1960s.

Prior to that, most New Yorkers glimpsed Canada geese only as the pixels in a large V flying overhead from Newfoundland to the Aleutian Islands. Those geese that could be found in New York were mostly members of hobbled flocks, collections of artificially grounded geese maintained by hunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries. By clipping (or just lopping off) a goose’s wings, hunters created flightless flocks that they set out to attract migratory geese into shooting range.

This practice, called “live decoying,” was outlawed in 1935, and while some hunters maintained their flocks in the aftermath, most just “freed” them. The geese, of course, couldn’t fly away, so they stayed on, eating and breeding without the help of humans. The Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that this one-time goose emancipation consisted of some 20,000 flightless birds, and it is believed that this wave begat the population now occupying

golf courses and soccer fields from Miami

to Minneapolis.

Expansion of the population

Freedom wasn’t free for early resident geese. Conditioned to live in a single location, they no longer flew more than about 150 miles during a given season (and even then, only when severe weather demanded it). Prior to their release, Americans had been exploring their manifest destinies in the West, killing and devouring geese to such an extent that the birds were thought to be extinct. (Those reckonings did not include hobbled flocks, because they were impossible to count.)

Then, in 1962, an Illinois biologist named Harold Hanson found a population of Canada geese wintering in Rochester, Minn. According to Hope’s story, Hanson’s discovery incited a “hoopla within the wildlife management community.” People across the country rushed to adopt populations of the birds, establishing them in parks as ornaments, like peacocks, and looking after them.

The birds were also seeded in the wild. According to the DEC, “Geese were released by the State Conservation Department on wildlife management areas in upstate New York to establish local flocks.”

Today it is obvious that these conservation efforts were explosively successful. But why? For one thing, Canada geese are good survivors and have few natural predators. They are also protected by the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 — which is ironic, since the population causing most of the problems no longer migrates. Canada geese also mate for life. This means that every time a migratory goose couples with a resident, the new arrival stays on. (What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?) These resident pairings then raise clutches of goslings and grand-goslings with no migratory instinct. These days, the majority of Canada geese have never been to Canada.

The creation of suburbs (which took root right here on Long Island following World War II) was also a boon to the recovering flocks. The proliferation of large, grassy areas near water sources where hunting was a no-no and mountain lions weren’t found was an advantage for the geese. In a way

few people predicted, both birds and

’burbs thrived.

Wild goose chasing

Today, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Canada goose populations are expanding by 1 to 5 percent annually. From seed populations of hobbled geese, the birds have bounced back so successfully that they have become pests.

The 5 million or so resident geese currently waddling around the U.S. cause numerous problems: The resident population is poaching from the migratory parent population, which is dwindling; the birds can be aggressive during their nesting season; and the geese have been known to get sucked into airplane engines. It was a goose collision that forced US Airways Flight 1549 to land in the Hudson River, although researchers at the Smithsonian Institute’s Feather Identification Laboratory have determined that those birds were of the migratory variety,.

Geese also poop a lot. A healthy goose is capable of “loafing” 100 times per day, and excessive accumulations of fecal coliform have forced the closures of public beaches and lakes.

Controlling the population of Canada geese has proven to be, thus far, an adventure. But the problem has spurred some creative thinking. Swans were thought to discourage goose residency for a while, as were border collies, wolf-shaped cutouts, scare guns, “dissuader” lasers and fencing.

The current anti-goose thinking is pretty pro-goose. The Humane Society advocates a process of oiling goose nests — pouring food-grade corn oil over the eggs to “keep air from passing through the shell so the embryo cannot develop.” Another humane method of population control is putting geese on the pill. A drug called Nicarbazin, or OvoControl, can be introduced just before breeding season and will ensure that geese lay infertile eggs — goose eggs, both literally and figuratively, at least as far as reproduction is concerned.

So far no single method of goose control has risen to prominence, and locales that are plagued by an overabundance of geese

rely on a combination of tactics to manage the problem.

The conclusion most goose thinkers have reached is that the geese are here to stay. Our advice, if there’s a flock encroaching on your territory, is to notify animal control, take a deep breath and try to appreciate the geese for the loyal, intelligent survivors that they are. With their swooping necks and stately black heads, Canada geese are handsome birds when viewed with proper perspective.

Besides, we did invite them here in the first place.

Watch this space next week for Long Island History and Mysteries part II: What’s the deal with those houses out in the wetlands?

Joe Diglio contributed to this story.