Continued: South metro takes aim at bird blight

It's open season on Canada geese in Inver Grove Heights, where a tightly controlled hunting program is helping to curb a big population of the beautiful but messy birds.

Jesse Abbott is one of the hunters, and he's seen hundreds of geese fly up from a newly harvested cornfield behind his house, south of Interstate 494 near Argenta Trail. It's one of four areas the police chief has authorized for hunting on certain dates, with the next hunt coming in December.

Abbott, 31, said he doesn't mind the birds, and he noted that he and other hunters "are helping to manage the population." But plenty of others -- in his city and across the metro area -- complain that the giant Canada geese, which can produce 2 pounds of dung a day, have at times overrun trails, corporate grounds, golf courses, beaches and back yards.

The birds have been multiplying in Minnesota for years. But thanks to a variety of management techniques, including hunting, the number of breeding-age Canada geese in the state has leveled off at roughly 294,000 -- with another 30,000 or so that are 3 years old or younger, said David Rave, a goose specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The DNR wants to get that figure down to about 250,000, he said.

In the metro area, there are about 17,500 breeding-age geese, with another 5,000 to 6,000 younger geese, Rave said.

"We've been dealing with the increase in the goose poop over the last 20 years in the city of Inver Grove Heights," said Mayor George Tourville, who said he has to sidestep the feces deposited around City Hall, where workers stay busy cleaning it up.

Whether it's a mess on a trail, a traffic hazard or the occasional bold, hissing goose that scares passersby, Tourville figures nearly everyone in his city has been affected by the birds. Complaints come mostly from rural neighborhoods, such as those near Argenta Trail and W. 70th Street, and near Hwy. 55 and Barnes Avenue, where Vance Grannis lives.

On a recent morning, Grannis peered out his window to see more than 20 geese in his yard. He says he's seen as many as 1,000 on his property, which includes a small lake. In the 1960s, when Canada geese were nearly extinct, he had none on his property.

"People wanted to get them restored, and they did get restored," said Grannis, a 71-year-old lawyer. "But they've gotten used to the urban way of life and done so well they've become a nuisance."

Rave, who works for the DNR's Wetland Wildlife and Population and Research Group out of Bemidji, Minn., said the population went up by about 90,000 birds between 2001 and 2006, topping out at more than 350,000.

"It was a lot of birds, and it was too high. We had a lot of complaints from farmers, and a lot of complaints from people with lake shores," Rave said.

Modifying their habitat

DNR officials tell urban residents not to feed geese because the practice can concentrate them and aid the spread of disease, as well as concentrate droppings on land and in water. And certain landscaping can contribute to problems by providing easy access to the grass that geese love to eat, said Bryan Leuth, north-metro wildlife manager for the DNR.

"We just happen to be in an area that has abundant lakes and rivers and ponds. But our modification of the habitat, in the form of a mowed lawn to the water's edge, is creating ideal goose habitat," he said.

Inver Grove Heights Police Chief Chuck Kleckner has responded to complaints and seen grounds and lakes thick with geese and water green with droppings. "We have a lot of semi-rural areas as well as ponds and lakes," he said.

As the goose population has grown, Kleckner said, the need for human controls has grown with it. The animals' feces can contain pathogens dangerous to humans and can raise the phosphorous level in lakes.

The DNR's ramped-up management programs include allowing harvesting for food shelves and extra goose-hunting seasons in September and December, when hunters are allowed to bag five geese. That's in addition to the regular goose season in October and November, when hunters can take two apiece.

The DNR also has licensed a private company to contract with cities, citizens and companies to remove the geese in the summer. Tom Keefe, owner of that firm, Canada Goose Management, based in Cottage Grove, said in the past year his firm removed about 2,500 geese. The adult geese are captured and killed at a processing plant. The goslings are donated to a wolf research and education center near Forest Lake.

Only a handful of metro cities, including Inver Grove Heights, Woodbury, Cottage Grove and Maple Grove, have enough rural space and can be flexible enough in their ordinances to allow the discharge of weapons for Canada goose hunts.

Years ago, one of Inver Grove Heights' first goose-management attempts was with the University of Minnesota to trap and relocate geese to Southern states, such as Mississippi and the Carolinas. But the birds with pea-size brains flew 1,000 or more miles back to nesting sites in Inver Grove Heights, Tourville said.

Joy Powell • 952-882-9017