Humane Society Objects To Plan To Kill Geese Living in Two County Parks 
 
 Montgomery Parks says it has tried nonlethal methods, but geese population has continued to grow 
 
 By Aaron Kraut 
 
 Two Canada geese in a Montgomery County park Montgomery Parks 
 
 The Humane Society of the United States is calling on Montgomery Parks not to go forward with a plan to round up and kill as many as 300 geese in a Silver Spring park and at the popular Lake Needwood recreation area in Rockville. 
 
 David Petersen, natural resources specialist with Montgomery Parks, said the department is facing an overpopulation of Canada geese, which damage playing fields and water quality, leave droppings filled with bacteria, and can be aggressive toward park guests—especially in the spring while protecting their nests. 
 
 He said recent counts have found between 80 and 120 of the geese at Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Park, the 95-acre park in Silver Spring where Parks staff and a contractor will round up geese for transportation to a processing facility starting either late this month or early July. 
 
 The roundup must wait until the geese have begun molting, or losing their flying feathers, Petersen said. The same process will happen at Lake Needwood, where he said counts have found between 20 and 50 geese. 
 
 The program as approved allows for the removal of up to 300 geese, though Petersen said he expects the number of geese to be rounded up and killed to be between 100 and 150. The goose meat from the processing plant will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank. It will be the first time Montgomery Parks has used the method of collecting the birds and taking them to a processing facility. 
 
 “This hasn’t been something that we’re jumping to do,” Petersen said. “The problems at these parks go back years and years. We’ve been doing other management efforts, but again as we’ve seen other entities successfully use this technique, it kind of just surfaced as the next step.” 
 
 Lynsey White Dasher, director of humane wildlife conflict resolution with the Humane Society, said the lethal method for dealing with geese is inhumane and often ineffective. 
 
 “These round up and killing programs for geese are not effective because they simply leave open empty attractable habitat,” Dasher said, “and that habitat will be refilled by geese coming in from nearby areas.” 
 
 She encouraged Montgomery Parks to implement a program of other techniques throughout the year, including egg addling, hiring companies with dogs to chase the geese away and allowing grass and vegetation to grow higher immediately around lakes and ponds. 
 
 Via Montgomery Parks, the two locations where the geese roundups are set to take place. 
 
 Geese are known to prefer lakes and ponds with mowed grass edges, since it allows them to more easily look out for predators during the molting season. That’s part of the reason why geese are known to frequent parks with athletic playing fields and golf courses, Petersen and Dasher said. 
 
 Petersen said Parks has tried those other techniques, including egg addling, in which people paint over goose eggs with corn oil so the eggs can’t hatch. The Humane Society considers that method more humane than rounding up adult geese and killing them. 
 
 He also said the department has repeatedly tried to get park patrons to stop feeding the animals, something else that attracts them to the areas. 
 
 “We do want to recognize that [Montgomery Parks] seems to be making some effort, but we certainly feel they could expand these humane efforts and we would be happy to help them design and implement a humane Canada geese management program,” Dasher said. 
 
 Petersen said Parks expects the roundup program to significantly decrease the geese populations in the two parks, though he left open the possibility the department would have to conduct similar programs in the future. 
 
 “It absolutely reduces the population,” Petersen said. “That’s been shown not only around the region, but around the country. This has been used for decades as a way to reduce the impacts. I don’t foresee the same number or more geese coming back the following season.” 
 
 The operation has approval from Parks Director Michael Riley and a permit required by the federal government. Parks staff and its contractor will use small, temporary fences to round up the geese, which will then be put into crates and transported to the processor, where they will be slaughtered and the meat packaged for the food bank. 
 
 Petersen said the project will cost Parks about $20 per goose. ||||| Montgomery County, Maryland, believes they have an uncommon solution to a bird problem in their county parks. 
 
 Montgomery Parks plans to round up between 100 to 150 geese that have been creating safety issues in the facilities and humanely euthanize them. The animals will be processed and the meat will be donated to the Maryland Food Bank. 
 
 “These geese are year-round residents and create multiple issues for park users and staff. The excessive feces they leave, up to one pound daily, is not only unsightly but causes unsanitary conditions around bodies of water, docks, pathways, athletic fields and lawn areas,” Dave Petersen, Natural Resources Specialist for Montgomery Parks, said in a press release. 
 
 The park service has already tried different, non-lethal methods to get rid of the geese, including a ban on feeding them, habitat manipulation, fencing and repelling devices. Those methods have worked in some parks, but other parks, including the Martin Luther King Jr., Recreational Park and Rock Creek Regional Park, continue to have a problem with too many geese. 
 
 A federally permitted wildlife contractor will do the geese removal. WTOP Radio reported The Humane Society of the United States has voiced its concern over the plans and would prefer the park system exhaust every non-lethal type of management. 
 
 “For us, it’s the first time we’ve used this method, but it is by no means unprecedented in our area,” Peterson told WTOP. ||||| Geese will be humanely euthanized, processed and donated to the Maryland Food Bank. 
 
 SILVER SPRING, MD—Montgomery Parks, part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is launching a geese removal project at two park sites, Martin Luther King, Jr. Recreational Park and Rock Creek Regional Park. The project will take place this June and up to 300 geese will be removed and humanely euthanized. The animals will then be processed for human consumption and the meat donated to the Maryland Food Bank. 
 
 “These geese are year-round residents and create multiple issues for park users and staff. The excessive feces they leave, up to one pound daily, is not only unsightly but causes unsanitary conditions around bodies of water, docks, pathways, athletic fields and lawn areas,” said Dave Petersen, Natural Resources Specialist for Montgomery Parks. 
 
 Other negative impacts from the geese include turf damage, shoreline erosion, aggressive and potentially dangerous behavior during nesting season, and public safety hazards on roads. 
 
 The Department of Parks has already implemented a number of measures to reduce negative impacts from geese, including a ban on feeding them, habitat manipulation, exclusion fencing, egg-oiling / addling and repelling devices. While these methods have proven beneficial at some park locations, they have not been sufficient to alleviate the impacts at Martin Luther King, Jr., Recreational Park and Rock Creek Regional Park. 
 
 The geese removal is being conducted by a federally permitted wildlife contractor in cooperation with Montgomery Parks’ Natural Resources Stewardship staff. Similar removal efforts have been conducted on both public and private land throughout the region. 
 
 For more information please visit www.parksnaturalresources.org 
 
 About The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Montgomery Parks: 
 
 Montgomery Parks manages more than 36,000 acres of parkland, consisting of 417 parks. Montgomery Parks is a department of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), a bi-county agency established in 1927 to steward public land. The M-NCPPC has been nationally recognized for its high-quality parks and recreation services, and is regarded as a national model by other parks systems. www.MontgomeryParks.org 
 
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– Officials in Montgomery County, Md., have put up fences and attempted to rearrange habitats, but the goose problem in parks there is so bad that they're now resorting to a last-ditch remedy: killing them and donating what's edible to feed the hungry, NBC News reports. Per a press release, up to 300 geese are to be "humanely euthanized" at both Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Park and Rock Creek Regional Park, "processed for human consumption," and the meat given to the Maryland Food Bank, though a Montgomery Parks rep tells Bethesda Magazine the number will probably be more like 100 to 150. "These geese are year-round residents and create multiple issues for park users and staff," David Petersen says. "The excessive feces they leave, up to one pound daily, is not only unsightly but causes unsanitary conditions." He also tells WTOP that geese protective of their offspring have been known to attack people, and that their grazing damages turf and grass. Petersen says that the gathering of the geese, which will run the parks department about $20 per bird, will take place through the end of June and into mid-July and stresses that it wasn't an easy decision to put the geese down, especially after criticism from the Humane Society. "These roundup and killing programs for geese are not effective because they simply leave open empty attractable habitat, and that habitat will be refilled by geese coming in from nearby areas," a Humane Society director tells Bethesda Magazine. Petersen rebuts that, noting to WTOP that the parks department has been tapping into other, nonlethal methods "for a number of years" and that "all these things have been marginally effective." He also points out it's not an unusual method to get rid of pesky fowl, noting everyone from homeowners associations to federal agencies have gone this route. (PETA claims that live geese are being plucked for their feathers.)