New England Town Subdivision

An expenditure of $147

An expenditure of $147 to Symmetry was approved for one spraying of the common ground around the lake.

better link

http://mdc.mo.gov/landown/wild/nuisance/w_geese/gc-geese/

Mo Conservation Comm article

http://mdc.mo.gov/landown/wild/nuisance/w_geese/gc-geese/

Ballwin plans new strategy

Ballwin plans new strategy for geese
By Florence Shinkle
Of the Post-Dispatch
Sunday, Jun. 26 2005

Regarding methods of controlling the urban geese population, the Ballwin Parks
Department has expert knowledge of what doesn't work.

Owl decoys proved ineffective. They were erected in Ballwin's Vlasis Park to
terrify the Canada geese, but the geese were undeceived and ignored the decoys
or pooped on them sociably.

Mylar tape strung in a grid over the park ponds to deprive the geese of access
frustrated local fishermen more than the geese.

Bottle rockets fired at the geese did launch them into flight, but the flocks
from Vlasis Park resettled on nearby Ballwin Golf Course. In a
good-for-the-goose-good-for-the-gander-move, golf club officials fired their
own bottle rockets, rousing the geese to fly back to the park.

Oiling the goose eggs to cut off oxygen to fetuses has had limited success
because only a limited number of nests on city property got their clutches
treated.

Signs discouraging people from feeding the animals went unheeded.

''We have actually noticed that some of our neighbors adjacent to the parks dump
piles of corn in their yard,'' parks director Linda Bruer wrote to Ballwin
residents.

Tonight the Board of Aldermen will consider a less comic, more deadly solution
to the goose problem: capturing them and killing some.

The Missouri Department of Conservation has agreed to direct a goose roundup at
four sites: Vlasis Park on Manchester Road, the Pointe at Ballwin Commons, New
Ballwin Park on New Ballwin Road and Ballwin Golf Course on Holloway Road. The
areas have about 180 geese and the prospect of the population doubling in five
years if no curbs are imposed.

Although the Conservation Department roundup does not require aldermanic
approval, ''the political sensitivity'' of the proposal prompted City
Administrator Robert Kuntz to include it as an item in his administrator's
report. Kuntz says the aldermen will need to vote on Monday on whether to
proceed because the effort has to be undertaken when the animals are molting
and flightless.

''I've been told we probably have to do it within the next couple of weeks if
we're going to do it this year,'' Kuntz said.

Goose roundups have been conducted across the nation since 2000, when a federal
court in Washington state rejected a petition by the Humane Society of the
United States for an injunction to stop them.

Forest Park had a roundup last year .

After the geese are caught, the adult birds are killed, and the younger ones
relocated to a wildlife area. Young geese are thought to imprint on the area
where they learn to fly, which means they might stay put if and when they reach
adulthood. But, deprived of their adult protectors, many of the goslings do not
survive the relocation, say people who object to roundups.

''I hear the soccer moms are upset that their children are stepping in poop. I
don't consider that a good enough reason to exterminate these beautiful
animals,'' said Chris Jackson, a Ballwin resident whose home abuts Vlasis Park.

Mayor Walter Young said he was willing to consider another, workable strategy,
but he worries that geese feces pose a health risk.

''You wouldn't believe all the poop,'' he said. ''We clean every day, but we can't
keep up with it,'' Young said. ''I feel like I'm a grandfather to every child in
Ballwin. They slide down the slide right into that crap, excuse the
expression.''

Reporter Florence Shinkle
E-mail: fshinkle@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 636-500-4107