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tacotacotaco14 t1_jeenosk wrote

Reply to comment by czyivn in Watertown Purchasing Dog to Chase Geese From Parks and Fields by Conan776

Or people could just learn to live alongside birds. Such a crazy mentality to think the whole world belongs to us and we can kill anything that is even a slight inconvenience. Let the birds hang out in the field, they're not that bad, it's just a dumb meme that they're actually scary

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iBarber111 t1_jeeqf94 wrote

Europe & New Zealand consider Canadian geese an invasive species. I'd love to see MA do the same. Their population growth is not "normal" & is in fact fueled by humans.

It'd be completely reasonable to engage in some population control, like we do with several other species. As the other poster said, their poop makes huge areas of parks basically unusable. They also can't be around airports for fear of another Sully incident. Terrible & invasive bird.

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eiviitsi t1_jefw6vw wrote

It's probably more likely for Canada geese to be considered a "nuisance" species, rather than "invasive," since they actually are native to MA. "Invasive" is usually reserved for species that are non-native.

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737900ER t1_jegv1bb wrote

The canada geese involved in the Cactus 1549 incident were actually migratory. It is the resident ones that are problematic.

> The Smithsonian Institution also performed a stable-hydrogen isotope analysis of the feather material collected from the airplane engines and compared the results with feather samples collected from resident geese in the New York region. The results indicated that the feathers from the airplane engines were similar to samples of known migratory geese and were significantly different from year-round resident populations from the New York region.

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czyivn t1_jeeottn wrote

They render sports fields virtually unusable. Have you ever played on a field covered in goose shit? It's both nasty and treacherous. They are so populous because humans scare all their other predators away.

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tacotacotaco14 t1_jeepwl4 wrote

"virtually unusable"... Come on, get real. I grew up running through goose poop playing soccer and baseball. It doesn't even stick to shoes like dog poop. It's a total non-issue unless you're a massive diva.

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czyivn t1_jef28h8 wrote

Jogging through it is nothing. Playing football and getting knocked down in it is fucking disgusting. It's also extremely slippery when wet if you aren't wearing cleats.

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YooHoooo_Ray t1_jefjfvj wrote

Have you ever been to the fields by the Chestnuthill reservoir? I’ve seen like thousands of goose poops there at times and everyone avoids it like the plague. It’s disgusting and for some reason it’s like candy to dogs 🤢

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