Plans to Euthanize Hundreds of Geese in Montgomery Parks Draw Fire

From Montgomery Community Media:

Plans to round up and euthanize Canada geese in two Montgomery County parks has drawn fire from the Humane Society of the United States.

Montgomery County’s Department of Parks officials say the geese are a public safety nuisance, and they are planning to euthanize hundreds of them at Martin Luther King Jr. Park and Rock Creek Regional Park this summer. Natural Resources Specialist David Petersen said the roundup is a first for Montgomery County.

According to Petersen, up to 300 non-migratory Canada geese will be removed from the parks and humanely euthanized this month and in July. He said the geese would be processed for human consumption and the meat donated to the Maryland Food Bank.

“The HSUS is opposed to the planned roundup and killing of Canada geese in Montgomery County parks because roundup and killing programs are ineffective, unnecessary, inhumane and a waste of taxpayer funds,” said Lynsey White Dasher, director of the Humane Wildlife Conflict Resolution for the HSUS. “We have been contacted by many of our members in Montgomery County that are very upset that geese will be killed in their community’s parks.”

White Dasher says many communities find that a month or two after such a roundup they have just as many geese in their parks as they did before.

“The best programs are those which combine egg addling to humanely control the population growth of geese and aversive conditioning (such as with the use of specially trained dogs or lasers) to move geese out of areas where they are problematic.”

The Humane Society is alerting its members in the county to share their concerns with Montgomery Parks.

You can find out more about the upcoming roundup on the Parks Department’s website, here.

»Photo of geese at park courtesy of Montgomery Community Media