Death Sentence Hangs Over Silver Lake Geese

The Whatcom County Parks & Recreation Department intends to exterminate the Canada geese at Silver Lake Park in late June or July, when the molting birds are unable to fly and unwilling to leave their goslings behind. This is being done without public approval.

The parks department asserts that it has the administrative authority to make this decision without County Council approval or public process. I believe this exceeds the scope of the parks department’s authority. Wildlife on public lands should be managed through a comprehensive wildlife strategy that involves legislative guidelines and public participation.

The parks department has failed to engage in any prior non-lethal control methods before seeking the goose roundup, although this is a mandatory requirement under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. USDA Wildlife Services, authorized to conduct the extermination, is funded by the fees it collects from wildlife extermination and, therefore, is more than willing to overlook this violation.

The parks department notes in a recent memo that “other steps to be taken [after killing the geese] could include specific techniques to discourage reemergence of a resident flock (landscape modification), education and enforcement to control the feeding of geese and other operational tactics.” Why aren’t these non-lethal control methods being tried first, as required by law? Apparently, the parks department would rather kill county wildlife than engage in the difficult and time consuming task of developing a long-term management strategy.

There is uniform agreement between wildlife management agencies, including WDFW and Wildlife Services, and wildlife welfare organizations, including the Humane Society, that the best means of managing Canada geese is through an integrated control strategy that adopts several different tactics, such as population stabilization, habitat modifications and site aversion. Wildlife agencies and organizations emphasize the need for long-term planning and public involvement before taking action.

An extermination plan, by itself, is not a permanent solution. Once the parks department kills the geese, how will it prevent the numerous other geese remaining in the area from relocating to desirable lake/lawn habitat? The short answer is it doesn’t. The public will be required to fund this inhumane and ineffective action on an annual basis, as it already does with regards to starlings and beavers.

The parks department has manufactured a false sense of urgency to justify the extermination through exaggerated claims of health risk. The parks department alleges that the geese threaten children, people with impaired immune systems and park workers. However, not one single scientific study has ever linked geese with human disease. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife states that Canada geese are not considered a significant source of any infectious disease transmittable to humans or domestic animals.

We need a comprehensive wildlife strategy before any county geese are killed. Readers who agree may let the County Council, Executive John Louws and the parks department know as soon as possible through an email (council@co.whatcom.wa.us 676-6690; parks@co.whatcom.wa.us 733-2900; jlouws@co.whatcom.wa.us 676-6717). Unless the public speaks up, the geese will be needlessly exterminated at Silver Lake. And once this occurs, nothing prevents the use of this ineffective technique in other county parks.