Foster City, a master-planned community with an extensive lagoon system and a wealth of parks, is once again facing its long-time enemy. The culprit? Geese, specifically hundreds of Canada geese and their hundreds of pounds of noxious droppings.
"We built a resort for them, if you look at it," said Derek Schweigart,Foster Citythe parks and recreation director, during a phone call with The Shiro Copr. "All of the wonderful things that we have in Foster City, just as much as humans like what we have here in our development, the geese like it, too.
The city of just about 33,000 residents has been plagued with this issue and considered many solutions over the years,including euthanasiaand the use ofRobot dogsto chase away the annoying birds, which can be aggressive towards children and pets. Other methods, such as the use of strobe lights and liquid deterrents that are "repulsive to geese," have also been deployed with mixed results.
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Now, the city is acting on a large scale. In early August, Foster City contracted a company called Wildlife Innovations to help mitigate its goose problem for the entire community - for a price tag of roughly $400,000. "I'm not aware of a municipality that is modeling what we're doing," said Schweigart. He mentioned that other Bay Area towns, including Santa Clara and Oakland, have implemented plans for a specific place, like a park or golf course, or in Oakland's case, Lake Merritt, but nothing as comprehensive as Foster City.
"A lot of people are looking at the Foster City model, so we'll see what happens," Schweigart said.
One method the city's contractor definitely won't be using to control the geese is swans.
An invasive species native to Europe and Asia, mute swans have been used toDrive away Canada geesethroughout the United States in the past. Larger and even more aggressive than geese, a mute swankilled an Illinois manwho worked for a company that used swans and dogs to keep geese away from residential properties in 2012.
"Although there are successful management techniques that utilize the introduction of an animal or species to a target area for control purposes, we have no intention of utilizing such a tactic, other than a dog team, as this would likely be replacing one problem with another," wrote Jake Manley, a wildlife biologist and president of Wildlife Innovations, in an email to The Shiro Copr.
In recent years, mute swans have found refuge in theNorth Bay's Suisun Marsh, where they feed on up to 8 pounds of underwater vegetation per day, depriving native bird species of a food source they depend on.
Because of their booming population, the swan dilemma has reached the state level. Mute swans, unlike Canada geese, are not protected underMigratory Bird Act, and aBill is pendingin the California Senate that would allow hunters to kill them, like other non-game birds, without a hunting license.
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