Chicago Goes On Goose Egg Patrol

[Kor37 9]

Chicago Goes on Goose Egg Patrol

AP

CHICAGO (March 21) - The city needs a flock of volunteers - for goose egg patrol.

 

Park District officials are enlisting people to help locate nests of goose eggs as part of an expanded program aimed at downsizing the population of the aggressive park-fouling birds.

 

The patrols will search 11 city parks for goose eggs during the birds' nesting season, which begins at the end of the month and lasts through April.

 

The volunteers will be taught about geese habitats and life cycles, but they won't be allowed to handle the eggs. That task will be reserved for employees of La Grange-based Wild Goose Chase, who will shake the eggs to destroy the embryo or coat them with corn oil to suffocate the developing chick.

 

"I can't stress enough, this is not an Easter egg hunt," said Susan Hagberg, president of Wild Goose Chase. "This is very regulated. If people think they can do this on their own, they can't."

 

Park officials have tried to control the flocks by planting grasses less attractive to the birds along lagoons, spraying digestive irritants on grass in Grant Park, and using border collies to drive migrating geese away in the fall.

 

The Humane Society of the United States supports the egg hunting method, said spokeswoman Diane Webber.

 

"It's much more humane than rounding up the geese and gassing them," she said.

 

I find it hilarious that they think you need to be certified to shake an egg or coat it with corn oil. Real genius stuff!

[Gummy 0]

Sounds like a fun retirement job for someone.

Beats being a greeter at WalMart.

[trekz 7]

Just this week I was driving to an appointment in a suburb that borders part of Chicago and came upon the end of a group of Canadian geese crossing the interior road between parking lots near a pond and the building where I had my appointment. One goose was going really slow so I slowed way down, nearly stopping, very close to the last goose crossing the roadway. The next thing I knew, another goose is advancing on my car like she wanted to attack, hissing and flaring out its wings. A driver who must know this flock came the other way, leaned on his horn, and got the wacky geese to move out of the way.

 

I thought it was rather ironic to scare away geese by honking!

 

They can be a pain, but I still feel bad that the geese eggs won't hatch. I must be getting sentimental in my old age.

[Charface 0]

What's bad for the goose is bad for the gander.

 

Beware the angry gander.

Edited March 23, 2007 by Charface