NEWS
Wild Warner representatives will be meeting with Madison park ecologist Russ Hefty Tuesday evening July 20 to discuss a long-term solution to Warner Park’s geese.
Hefty has been tapped to write recommendations for geese management citywide, and has been spending days counting and watching geese behavior throughout the city parks.
In an interview with us in late June, he said he counted 143 geese at Warner, 91 of them juveniles. This despite his quiet effort, after the May 12 no-kill vote by park commissioners, to kill 96 eggs in some 20 nests that he could reach in Warner.
He said he dropped each egg in water. If it sank, the embryo was immature, and he covered the shell with corn oil, suffocating it. If the egg floated, it was too late to suffocate with oil, in which case he crushed the eggs.
He called them “resident geese,” a term that wildlife officials use to mean non-migrating geese. When Warner’s lagoon freezes, they only fly as far south as needed to find open water and feed, Hefty said. Nine of the 143 had unidentified leg tags.
Hefty has been researching geese management techniques, and talking with UW wildlife ecologist Scott Craven, a geese expert, who will also be at the meeting.
From what he has seen, Hefty believes that much of the prevailing wisdom about plant barriers is ignored by the geese, and that no-mow barriers may be of limited use in controlling geese populations or their nuisance defecations on lawns and sidewalk. He has shored up a low “walk-up ramp” for geese on Warner’s northeast corner near the soccer field, one of their favorite gathering spots.
Warner’s entire geese flock fled on July 3 — literally walking, because they could not fly in molt — across Woodward Drive during Rhythm and Booms, into Lake Mendota. We counted 59 this morning.
Dane County Airport officials have signaled that they will return to the park commission with another request to kill Warner’s geese. Because they can live for 20 years, Hefty indicated that killing some of Warner’s geese may be in his plan.
He said he favored a target population of no more than two-or-three broods a year, about 25 geese. Even with oiling eggs every year, a killing might be needed every two or three years, he told us.
Hefty can expect opposition to any geese kill. Wild Warner, the Audubon Society and members of the “No Madison Goose Kill” Facebook page (1,913 members) will be at the meeting.
Hefty said he would hold similar meetings with citizens around the city, and make his recommendations to the Parks Commission in September and October.
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