Plans to keep geese from new park considered Once-migratory birds now making permanent home in area

Plans to keep geese from
new park considered
Once-migratory birds now making permanent home in area

Workers level the sidewalk at Eatontown’s Wampum Park as it nears completion.

EATONTOWN — With construction at Wampum Lake Park soon to be completed, now is the time to take action to prevent Canada geese from settling in, Councilman John J. Collins suggested.

Collins outlined a proposed plan of action at the Borough Council’s April 10 meeting that included a trial use of border collies to chase them away and importing a pair of mute swans for the lake.

A new Veterans Plaza is being created at the southern end of the park, and work is expected to be completed in time for the borough to hold its Memorial Day ceremony there May 27.

"This time is ideal with the new park," Collins said, to put a program to control the geese in place. "I think it would be a shame to have the park spoiled."

In a report to the council, Collins said the geese no longer are migratory. He said there are 3.5 million throughout the country, 1 million of them in the Atlantic flyway, with an annual increase of between 6 and 14 percent. He noted they are attracted to bodies of water and manicured lawns in built-up areas where hunting isn’t allowed. They also live longer than other birds, he said.

Collins said problems with the geese include the health hazard created by their feces. He said they denude grassy areas, pose a hazard to airports, degrade water quality, and are a traffic hazard on roads.

They also are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, he said.

To deal with the Canada geese, Collins proposed passing a resolution in support of the "state empowerment" alternative as outlined in the draft regulation from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which would transfer some authority to the states; arrange with Tinton Falls for a border collie demonstration at the park on a weekend when construction activity is suspended with an eye to possibly procuring the borough’s own dogs, and consider bringing in mute swans.

"Mute swans not only add beauty," he said, "but they are territorial. If we get a pair and they have an egg, they will chase out others" including any Canada geese seeking to settle in.

In addition, Collins said signs saying "Do Not Feed Wildlife" should be erected immediately. Councilman Theodore F. Lewis Jr. said bringing in mute swans would be fine as long as the borough doesn’t have a balance of nature problem with the swans 10 years down the road.

The council endorsed the idea of the signs but took no other immediate action on the proposal.