Battle against overpopulated geese never ends

At the Alverthorpe Park golf course in Abington, just beyond the second hole, geese glide idyllically on the lake.

That they represent one of the great wildlife success sagas in natural history does nothing for Doug Wendell.

"They're horrible," said Wendell, the township's park director.

In Downingtown, where goose-patrol crocodiles have been prowling the waters for several years, Jack Law can relate. The geese have long since figured out that the crocodiles are fake. "There are just as many geese swimming in the ponds as before," said Law, the borough's public works director.

In fact, for geese, it doesn't get much better than it does around here.

Southeastern Pennsylvania has one of the densest populations of Branta Canadensis maxima - or "resident" Canada goose - in the nation, said Harris Glass, state director of wildlife services for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

After leveling off for a few years, the numbers spiked in 2010. It's too early to know whether that's a trend reversal, said John Dunn, wildlife specialist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, but it bears watching.

At least one local observer is looking for another jump in 2011. Bob Lohoefer, owner of the Goose Guys, a Montgomery County service that uses border collies to chase away unwanted fowl, said that from what he had seen, the mating season was off to a rip-roaring start.

Last year, the Game Commission counted more than 230,000 full-time residents in Pennsylvania, producing roughly 115,000 pounds of droppings daily. About a third resided in the 13 southeastern counties, or 16 per square mile. The geese also are partial to the Garden State. An estimated 80,000 geese inhabit New Jersey full time, according to the Department of Environmental Protection, or 11 per square mile.

So what's the problem? Goose droppings have fouled waterways, not to mention innumerable shoe bottoms. "It's not too pleasant when little kids are out there playing soccer and there's goose poop everywhere," said Derek Dureka, the Upper Dublin Township parks and recreation director.

Geese eat grass, and their droppings can kill it, Glass said. Geese can be aggressive, and on occasion they are airport hazards, as they were famously in New York in January 2009.

But Edita Birnkrant, New York director of Friends of Animals, argues that goose hazards and the overpopulation problem are greatly overstated. " 'There's too many. There's too many,' " she said she kept hearing. "But what model are we using to decide 'too many'?"