City capturing and killing geese to feed hungry families

Cull needed ‘to prevent human-goose conflicts’, official says

Around 5,000 geese live in the parks of Denver, Colorado, during summer (Getty/iStock)

A US city is rounding up geese and killing them to feed hungry families in an effort to control the growing population of the birds across its parks.

Denver, in Colorado, is home to around 5,000 Canada geese in the summer months and absorbs 5,000 pounds of the birds’ waste each day, according to the city’s park authority.

Denver’s Parks and Recreation department says it is necessary to cull the birds to protect the city’s waterways, make room for different bird species and “prevent human-goose conflicts”.

Scott Gilmore, the executive director of the park authority, told CBS: “It had gotten to the point where the parks were being almost unenjoyable for a lot of people so that is why we moved forward with this plan.

“They are taking them to a processing facility where they are processed and they are donating them to needy families.”

Working with the United States Department of Agriculture’s, the park authority aims to kill a maximum of 2,200 geese each year.

It comes after the current goose management plan failed to tackle the rising goose population. Denver’s parks provide an ideal environment for the birds due to their large manmade lakes and lack of natural predators.

Tactics used by the park authority included coating eggs with corn oil to stop embryo development and scaring the birds with a remote-controlled device known as a “Goosinator”.

Park authorities says it is necessary to cull the city’s Canada geese population to protect waterways (Getty iStock)

However, critics say killing the geese is cruel. Howard Turk, who lives near Denver’s Washington park, told CBS: “I think supporting underprivileged people is noble, but killing wild geese to feed those, sounds ridiculous.”

Marc Bekoff, a professor of Ecology and Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, argued in an article for Psychology Today that killing the geese “creates a vicious and violent cycle”.

“There surely are non-lethal humane ways to control goose populations and it’s a short term ‘feel good’ solution, because the problem reoccurs yearly.”

He described the government’s decision to feed the birds to poor families as “a feel good sales pitch”.

“Many people love to be around other animals and their loss means a lot to them because they truly find peace and solace in their presence,” he added.

The plan to kill and process geese for meat is currently underway in Washington Park and will soon be rolled out in parks across the city.

In the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs advises that geese can be controlled by rounding up and culling them whilst they are moulting.

However, swans are protected and it is illegal to kill, injure or take one without a licence. Until the law was changed in 1998, it was treasonous to kill a swan.