Canada Goose

Hunting season in Pennsylvania will begin this week with a blend of the traditional and not-so-traditional. Dove season, which customarily marks the beginning of fall hunting in the state, will open Wednesday. The first portion of the season, which again will be split, will end Oct. 9. Legal hunting hours will be between noon and sunset. The second part of dove season will begin on Oct. 30 (which also happens to mark the beginning of the general small-game season) and continue through Nov. 27. Shooting during the second half of dove season will be from one half hour before sunrise until sunset.

Restrictive hunting regulations that were imposed last year to reduce the harvest of migrant Canada geese in Pennsylvania will remain in effect for the 1993-94 season, under a proposal by the state's game commission. However, the commission's proposed seasons and bag limits for waterfowl hunting, which were announced at a public briefing at the agency's headquarters, do feature several changes from the 1992-93 season. These include an earlier start to both the duck and Canada goose seasons in the state's South Zone and a 50-percent reduction in the number of days hunters can hunt geese in Crawford County in the Northwest Zone.

Colorful, noisy, ubiquitous: The Canada goose is a bit like a vuvuzela. Those fiercely festive stadium horns, whose drone has become the unofficial World Cup soundtrack, inspire a mix of love and hate. So, too, do the 20-pound, year-round birds who grace and deface the landscaped greens that are their pastures. Just ask the patrons of Laurel Acres Park in Mount Laurel, the latest local focal point in this ceaseless interspecies conflict. "The geese are a nuisance," says township resident Tracey Charles, who walks the park several times a week with her infant daughter, Grace.

Ventnor voice should be diverse I attended a recent meeting sponsored by the Ventnor Community Association concerning the controversial beach-replenishment program. I was disappointed to look around the room and see only Caucasians. I am of the firm belief that until all ethnic groups become part of the community in which they live, we will only continue to grow further apart. Everyone has to work together on a way to embrace this rapidly growing population and bring it into the fold as a part of the Ventnor family.

They flock to lawns and ponds, drawn to the manicured suburban landscape. In the last decade, their population has doubled across the Garden State. Standing two to three feet tall, weighing 10 to 12 pounds, on average, the resident Canada goose has become ubiquitous in New Jersey, thrilling wildlife enthusiasts but frustrating many property owners. While humans normally are accused of encroaching on wildlife, in this case, the roles have been reversed. And towns across South Jersey are wrestling with the feathered dilemma.

A federal judge has ruled that a Delaware County developer planning to build an office complex named after the old village of Wawa must warn the public that he is not associated with the well-known dairy and chain of convenience stores. U.S. District Judge Louis H. Pollak ruled Monday that Commons at Wawa Inc. must carry an asterisk on its signs, stationery and other advertisements noting that the firm is not affiliated with Wawa Inc., whose dairy is in the nearby village of Wawa.

You've got some new friends in Pennsylvania. They're at your local park, treading on the ball field. They've staked claim to your golf club, fertilizing the fairways. They're grazing in farm fields, damaging the crops. They're even jaywalking, causing traffic backups. Need a clue? Honk! The Canada goose has landed, in nearly every suburbanite's neighborhood. Canada geese have been migrating over our heads in their familiar V-shaped patterns for centuries, their resonant honking a harbinger of changing seasons.

Along with the robin, another winged harbinger of spring is the collection of carved wooden fowl that will be offered Sunday by Frank & Frank Auctions at its annual late-March sale of decoys and sporting collectibles in the New Jersey Shore resort of Belmar. Some of the prices for the birds are expected to be flying high, too. More than 300 lots of working and decorative decoys, by such well-known artisans as the late Hurley Conklin and members of the Shourds family, will be offered beginning at 10 a.m. at the Taylor Pavilion, Fifth and Ocean Avenues.

You can talk about your goose bumps and berries and barnacles, your goose eggs and flesh and feet. But here's the poop: These days, when you're talking goose, you're talking goose droppings. They are everywhere - from the shores of the Schuylkill in Philadelphia to office buildings in Ambler, from Meadowbrook Country Club to Abington Friends School. They're in city and suburb, pond and pool, field and fairway. What a mess. "They do it all over. They don't have toilets and unfortunately, I can't train them like I do our dogs," complained Artie Robersen, business manager for Abington Friends School, which inherited its indelicate problem from the township's Alverthorpe Park.

From his Ford pickup, Bob Lohoefer looks into a glorious summer morning at George Washington Memorial Park in Plymouth Meeting. The sun is burning off the haze. Along a rolling expanse of lawn, a work crew sizes up a spot to dig a grave. Between two ponds, Lohoefer pulls off the path, gets out and looks down. The ground is dotted with green blobs. "This is a place that's supposed to be peaceful," Lohoefer says. "Not a place where you have to step in goose poop. " The offenders, about 40 of them, swim lazily in a pond about a hundred yards off. Lohoefer - with his partner, Joe Rocco, a few part-timers, and a pack of trained dogs - is one of the Goose Guys.

Colorful, noisy, ubiquitous: The Canada goose is a bit like a vuvuzela. Those fiercely festive stadium horns, whose drone has become the unofficial World Cup soundtrack, inspire a mix of love and hate. So, too, do the 20-pound, year-round birds who grace and deface the landscaped greens that are their pastures. Just ask the patrons of Laurel Acres Park in Mount Laurel, the latest local focal point in this ceaseless interspecies conflict. "The geese are a nuisance," says township resident Tracey Charles, who walks the park several times a week with her infant daughter, Grace.

With extensive sales planned by such family-owned auction companies as Frank & Frank and Pook & Pook, plus a third event to be conducted at the Rhoads & Rhoads Auction Center, this weekend promises bidding that will be fast and furious. The Monmouth County-based Frank & Frank Sporting Collectibles LLC will be conducting its spring sale of decoys, art, and sporting collectibles Sunday at Tuckerton, N.J., instead of its usual site in Belmar. More than 325 lots of duck decoys, other carved fowl, a few fish, and related sporting items including books and a vintage black bearskin rug, will be offered beginning at 10 a.m. at 215 E. Main St. The site was chosen so Frank & Frank could participate in the New Jersey Decoy Collectors Show from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow at the Parkertown firehouse, 2? miles to the north, where it will do free appraisals, according to Jon Frank, whose son, Alex, is the other Frank.

Along with the robin, another winged harbinger of spring is the collection of carved wooden fowl that will be offered Sunday by Frank & Frank Auctions at its annual late-March sale of decoys and sporting collectibles in the New Jersey Shore resort of Belmar. Some of the prices for the birds are expected to be flying high, too. More than 300 lots of working and decorative decoys, by such well-known artisans as the late Hurley Conklin and members of the Shourds family, will be offered beginning at 10 a.m. at the Taylor Pavilion, Fifth and Ocean Avenues.

New Jersey is overpopulated with unwelcome immigrants from Canada, and at long last someone is getting rid of them. I am talking about Canada geese, the new weapons of mass destruction. It is estimated there are 100,000 of these dirty birds in New Jersey, dropping their disgusting calling cards on our parks, playgrounds, ponds, golf courses, and (look out!) cars minutes after they are washed. Along the entire East Coast, there are more than one million Canada geese. That's fodder for a sequel to a Hitchcock flick.

One hundred Canada geese found their home here amid the hush of suburbia, in a shallow pond on the Cabot Corp. property, eating up grass, taking a leisurely swim, hissing, and chasing the occasional Cabot employee. The geese were loving life - until one day, they paused and looked into the eyes of death. They were the eyes of Lace, a border collie, dark brown and seemingly hungry. "Go get 'em, Lace!" her owner, Maggie Chambers, remembers calling out as the black-and-white dog paddled after two Canada geese, her mouth wide open.

Ventnor voice should be diverse I attended a recent meeting sponsored by the Ventnor Community Association concerning the controversial beach-replenishment program. I was disappointed to look around the room and see only Caucasians. I am of the firm belief that until all ethnic groups become part of the community in which they live, we will only continue to grow further apart. Everyone has to work together on a way to embrace this rapidly growing population and bring it into the fold as a part of the Ventnor family.

They flock to lawns and ponds, drawn to the manicured suburban landscape. In the last decade, their population has doubled across the Garden State. Standing two to three feet tall, weighing 10 to 12 pounds, on average, the resident Canada goose has become ubiquitous in New Jersey, thrilling wildlife enthusiasts but frustrating many property owners. While humans normally are accused of encroaching on wildlife, in this case, the roles have been reversed. And towns across South Jersey are wrestling with the feathered dilemma.

From his Ford pickup, Bob Lohoefer looks into a glorious summer morning at George Washington Memorial Park in Plymouth Meeting. The sun is burning off the haze. Along a rolling expanse of lawn, a work crew sizes up a spot to dig a grave. Between two ponds, Lohoefer pulls off the path, gets out and looks down. The ground is dotted with green blobs. "This is a place that's supposed to be peaceful," Lohoefer says. "Not a place where you have to step in goose poop. " The offenders, about 40 of them, swim lazily in a pond about a hundred yards off. Lohoefer - with his partner, Joe Rocco, a few part-timers, and a pack of trained dogs - is one of the Goose Guys.

The hunt for Canada geese is set to begin today at Upper Perkiomen Valley Park, amid complaints that it is not necessary to control Montgomery County's swelling population of the once-migratory waterfowl, whose excrement sullies area lakes and lawns. The 10-day hunt, sponsored by the county Department of Parks and the state Game Commission, will continue on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays until Sept. 24. Park officials had tried to control the goose population through shaking or "addling" the eggs, park director Otto Quinque said yesterday.

Hunting season in Pennsylvania will begin this week with a blend of the traditional and not-so-traditional. Dove season, which customarily marks the beginning of fall hunting in the state, will open Wednesday. The first portion of the season, which again will be split, will end Oct. 9. Legal hunting hours will be between noon and sunset. The second part of dove season will begin on Oct. 30 (which also happens to mark the beginning of the general small-game season) and continue through Nov. 27. Shooting during the second half of dove season will be from one half hour before sunrise until sunset.