The flock of geese that live around the river and canal in Saltaire has got bigger and bigger over the past few years. There are Greylags and Canada Geese and it appears to be the latter that are now causing a particular problem. I wrote, back in 2011, that there were only a couple of Canada geese but now there are something like thirty. Thirty birds cause an awful lot of droppings and they are really messing up the park paths, grass and cricket pitches. People do feed them - unhealthy bread mostly, as I wrote yesterday - and this practice is discouraged, though it seems to be having little effect on people's behaviour.
The diet of the goose is interesting: they mostly graze on grass, but it turns out that their gut is not adapted to eating the stuff and they can't really digest much of it, so they have to eat an awful lot of it to get any sustenance at all, which is of course why they produce such vast amounts of green droppings. However they always seem to find plenty of food so there's really no need to feed them anyway.
ReplyDeleteBirds can do quite well on their own. The geese we have here in the summer do well just eating the grass, but there are some people who'll still insist on feeding them, despite similar signs.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same situation here - people just want to feed them anyway!
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for the geese who see a perfect place, but aren't welcome. Once a pair find a nice spot, others will follow. I believe the flock has to be relocated. I don't think that not feeding them will stop the visits from getting larger and larger.
ReplyDeleteWe have the same problem here....people think they are doing the geese a favor by feeding them bread.
ReplyDeleteDitto what I said yesterday.
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