Goose Herding a Growing Industry

  • Giant Canada Geese, Belle Isle, Detroit. (Photo by Celeste Headlee)

In just thirty years, the Giant Canada Goose has gone from near extinction to a now-thriving population. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of geese gather on golf courses and in state parks, often causing problems for their human neighbors. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, some property owners have found a unique solution to the problem:

Transcript

In just thirty years, the Giant Canada Goose has gone from near
extinction to a now thriving population. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of geese
gather on golf courses and in state parks, often causing problems for
their human neighbors. As the Great Lake Radio Consortium’s Celeste
Headlee reports, some property owners have found a unique solution to the
problem:


A year ago, dozens of families flocked to Pier Park in the Detroit suburb
of
Grosse Pointe Woods for an annual Easter egg hunt. Children rushed
onto the
grass with their brightly colored baskets and then stopped abruptly when
they found themselves surrounded by Giant Canada geese and their
droppings.


Park manager Michelle Balke says local residents decided
the geese had to go.


“They left droppings everywhere. You couldn’t walk on the grass. They’re
aggressive. If kids start going up to them, they start hissing back and it
got really annoying. They were everywhere.”


It hasn’t always been like that. The Giant Canada goose was so rare 30
years ago that many scientists thought it was extinct. But a few of the
large birds were spotted in the 1960s. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources began
an aggressive recovery program and there are now three and a half million Canada geese in the
U.S.


Conservation agencies say the birds cause hundreds of thousands of
dollars in damage every year because of accumulated droppings, overgrazing,
attacks against people and threats to aircraft.


(sound of geese)


Tom Schneider is the curator of birds at the Detroit Zoo. He trades
glares with a large male bird that has taken up residence on a lawn at the zoo. The
big black and grey goose honks at Schneider, warning him to stay away
from his chosen territory. Schneider says one aggressive bird can be a bit of
a problem, but a large crowd of them is unacceptable.


“People tend to like them until they get to be a certain number where they
become a nuisance, and when they become a nuisance, they don’t want
any geese. So, you might have a lake that has five pairs on there and that’s
great, but if you have 50 pairs of geese on there, it’s not so good
anymore.”


Schneider is a member of the Canada Goose Coalition. The group
includes representatives from the government, hunters, scientists and animal
welfare organizations. The coalition deals with the large population of Canada
Geese in the Great Lakes region. Schneider says one of the problems
with the birds is that they eat grass. Most birds don’t.


“The problem is they don’t have very efficient digestive systems. So they
have to eat a lot of food to get their nutrients, so as a result they
produce a lot of fecal material.”


Schneider says property owners have struggled to deal with large
groups of geese and the droppings they leave behind. One adult goose produces
about a pound and a half of droppings every day. When there are a hundred
birds on a piece of property… well… you can imagine. But the birds are federally
protected. So there’s not a lot that you can do.


(sound of geese)


But…one guy got an idea and called Barbara Ray. Ray had for years
been training border collies to drive sheep when she got a call from a man
looking for a dog to herd birds.


“I had a golf course superintendent who just had an idea about trying to
use these dogs to herd the geese… not chase them because the dog
needed to be under control. We certainly can’t have a dog that catches the geese
and shreds them like other breeds would be prone to do. But one that is
simply jazzed by staring down and moving birds in a specific direction.”


Ray says it was easy for the dogs to learn how to drive geese and one
dog can cover several hundred acres. She says border collies naturally
intimidate prey without barking or attacking, so they’re perfect for this
kind of work.


“What they’re using is a ‘let’s make my day’ kind of approach where the
stock believes if they don’t move as the dog quietly approaches, staring at
them in this intimidating fashion, that they’re probably going to follow up and
do something more demonstrative.”


Ray has built a business around training goose dogs and has so far
sold more than 500 of the dogs. One of those border collies ended up at Pier Park
in suburban Detroit. Manager Michelle Balke says it’s been a year since
the dog, Kate, arrived and there is no longer a problem with geese at the
park.


“She had just gotten rid of them, whether they sense her being here or
what, but they just stopped coming around. They were going next door, they
were hanging out on Lakeshore Road out there, but they just weren’t coming
into the park.”


(ambient sound of geese fade in)


Tom Schneider says goose dogs are an effective, humane way to deal
with Canada geese on private property, but it’s not a permanent solution to
the problem of overpopulation.


“The problem with that program… in many ways, it shifts those problem
geese to a different location, so maybe they may no longer be a problem on
this golf course but now they’re a problem on that golf course. While that
does provide some remedy for the people in those situations, it doesn’t really
solve the bigger, overall picture.”


Schneider has led a goose management program for over a decade at
the Detroit Zoo that involves destroying eggs. That program has cut the
number of geese on zoo grounds from between 500 and a thousand to 50.


This year, Schneider’s team will travel to other places to destroy eggs
and encourage thousands of geese to move on. But you have to have a
permit to do that which is not that easy to do. Schneider thinks goose dogs might
be the best alternative for private landowners.


(ambient sound out)


Goose dogs have become so popular that more than a dozen
companies around the U.S. now train and sell border collies to chase the Giant Canada
Goose.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.


(goose sound out)

Rock Climbers Grapple With Cliff Preservation

  • A young climber makes her way up the sandstone cliffs at the popular Oak Park in Grand Ledge, MI. Climbers are struggling to balance the love of their sport with their love of the park. They're coming up with different answers to the question - when can nature and climbing coexist? (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Rock climbing has been considered a sport since the early twentieth century. And it’s becoming more mainstream in the U.S. and Canada. As rock climbers visit parks in growing numbers, some people are beginning to wonder… can nature and climbing always coexist? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports… one climbing guide thinks a Midwest park has reached its breaking point, and he’s giving up income to prove it:

Transcript

Rock climbing has been considered a sport since the early twentieth century.
And it’s becoming more mainstream in the U.S. and Canada. As rock climbers
visit parks in growing numbers, some people are beginning to wonder… can
nature and climbing always coexist? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams reports… one climbing guide thinks a Midwest park has
reached its breaking point, and he’s giving up income to prove it:


(clinking, rope sound) “You guys stretched out real good? Let’s get
climbing! Grab a helmet and let’s get climbing…”


Michael Hood’s climbing class is gearing up to scale the sandstone cliffs at
Oak Park… nicknamed the Ledges. It’s a popular seven-acre park in Grand
Ledge, Michigan.


Most of these kids have climbed here many times, and they get started
quickly.


“Let’s get you up here. Bug, you coming up here? Let’s do our commands..
“On belay?” “Belay on.” “Whoa, gotta feel the fish first, watch that break
hand…”


This class is special. It’s probably the last good day of the season. It
also might be the last time they’ll ever climb here.


Michael Hood has been coaching climbers at the Ledges for 19 years. He gets
most of his income from teaching here. And you can tell he loves his work.
But he says, after today, he won’t teach another class here.


“These sandstone, fragile sandstone cliffs, and all the plants and animals
that live on them, cannot share the rock with climbing. Because we
interfere with all the life processes that go on up there, no matter how
sensitive we are.”


Hood says over the past few years, he began to realize the impact decades of
climbing were having on the Ledges. He’s seen cliff swallow nests pushed
out to make way for better handholds. He says climbers have worn away the
topsoil at the cliff’s edge. And even the rock is vulnerable.


“You can do decades worth of damage in just one day very easily.”


Hood says the problem is that the Ledges are small, 150 yards long and 40
feet high. And there are lots of climbers. Visitor surveys show that
thousands of people climb at the park every year. It’s the only place to
climb outdoors in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. So climbers come from places
as far away as Detroit, Ohio and Indiana.


Michael Hood says there are some rules in place, but there’s no one to
enforce them. Hood recently asked the city’s parks and recreation
commission to consider banning climbing at the park.


That’s stirring up the climbing community.


At first, Hood says he got a lot of angry phone calls. Now, a group of
local climbers is asking the city to keep the park open.


Judy McGarry has been climbing at the Ledges for two years. She says if the
park closes, she’d have to drive to Kentucky or Canada to climb outdoors.


“It’d be really sad if they did close it. I know with a lot of people
coming down here there’s erosion. But if you think about it, who really
cares about this rock more than climbers? We want it here so we can climb
it.”


Climbers are fighting to keep parks open across the country. Shawn Tierney
is with the Access Fund, a non-profit group that advocates for climbers. He
says climbers called him when they heard about Michael Hood’s efforts to
close the park.


“I think his concerns are probably valid, he’s concerned about resource
impacts at the area, and instead of closing the area, which to me seems to
be a very extreme measure, there needs to be some management of the area.
And recruit climbers in the process of helping to take care of the area.”


But Michael Hood isn’t sure anything short of a permanent closure will work.


“Climbers want to believe they could put a few regulations in place and save
this place. But the problem is climbers are notoriously an unruly bunch,
myself included. We don’t like to be told what to do, how to do it, when to
do it.”


Experts say conflicts between rock climbers and park managers are fairly
common. Peter Kelly studies cliff ecology and climbing at the University of
Guelph in Ontario. He says one problem in these situations is that not much
is known about cliff ecosystems because they’re hard to get to.


“Obviously people have observed that damage has taken place. But what has
been lost there that people didn’t even know about?”


And that’s the big question. Michael Hood says he’s asked geologists and
botanists to take a look at the park. But he doesn’t want to cause more
damage while he waits to see if the scientists publish or the city makes a
decision. He’s convinced he can’t keep bringing people to climb at the
Ledges.


He says it’s the right thing to do for the park, even though it’s not a
decision he came to easily.


“I’m losing a lot. I’ve lost a lot of lifelong friends over this, I’m
losing most of my income, and my livelihood. And the love I have for
guiding and working with these young people. It’s really powerful for me to
be out here. I live and breathe this, and to give this up and walk away
from it is… I can’t even articulate what a sacrifice this is for me.”


(sound up of climbers packing up equipment, ropes being put into piles, etc)


The sun is setting, and it’s getting chilly. Hood and his staff take the
ropes down and pack the helmets into bags.


Hood gathers the kids in a circle.


“That we could share this last day together here, I will never ever forget
it. And we’ll climb together some more, in other places. But every time I
come here I’ll think of this last day with you guys and never, ever forget
it. It’s just wonderful.”


Michael Hood hopes his class will walk away understanding why he’s giving up
climbing in a place he loves.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

City Battles Sprawl With Greenbelt

Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb unplanned growth:

Transcript

Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its
surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first
locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. Sprawl often occurs when developers pave over
farmland and other natural resources to create strip malls and subdivisions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb urban sprawl:


Voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan gave the nod to a 30 year tax to preserve roughly 8,000 acres of land. It’s
one of the first measures in the Great Lakes states to set up a major regional funding plan for curbing
growth. Sprawl is prominent in the area and Ann Arbor and its surrounding townships will share the
preservation costs. The proposal will allow the city to purchase easements on land. That will prohibit the
land’s future development and preserve it.


Elizabeth Humphrey is the director of the Growth Management Leadership Alliance in Washington, D.C.
She says citizens are fed up with seeing houses overtake park lands. So anti-sprawl initiatives, like Ann
Arbor’s, are gaining popularity among all political parties.


“I think the loss of open space is the one thing that we all see as the big threat of sprawl. It’s tangible.
You can see it in the field you used to play in when you grew up. It disappears and that’s visceral. And I
think that appeals to everybody who’s really concerned about how we’re growing.”


Humphrey says that Ann Arbor’s program is a good approach, since it focuses on regional development.
And while scenic areas like Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon have greenbelts in place, the
Midwest generally hasn’t followed. But that could all change now, according to Mike Garfield. He’s
director of The Ecology Center, which spearheaded the plan.


“I think that what we did Tuesday in Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor township could lead to a wave of new
conservation easement programs and farmland programs around Michigan and throughout the Great
Lakes Region.”

Garfield says his group’s win showed it was possible to successfully trounce a formidable opponent: the
homebuilders. Homebuilders feared the plan would limit housing choices. They spent a quarter of a
million dollars to fight it. Garfield’s hopeful that this victory will help preserve Ann Arbor’s high quality
of life and its vital downtown. In a mere ten minutes, he’s able to walk to work without fighting traffic.
And he thinks the ‘yes’ vote indicated that Ann Arbor residents value that kind of living. But Garfield
realizes not everyone in Ann Arbor agrees with him.


“And of course there were some people in town who are not developers and home builders who opposed
it because it was a tax or because they believed some of the arguments or they didn’t trust city hall or
something like that.”


Niki Wardner is one of those people. She lives in a ranch on an acre of land overlooking a public golf
course in Ann Arbor’s wooded residential section. A handful of vote no signs are perched against her
door. Wardner lobbied heavily with other citizens against the Ann Arbor plan. She thinks 30 years is
way too long for a tax.


“They’re going to bond this issue, this proposal, i.e., take a mortgage out. We can never change it.
There’s no accountability. How do we know 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, what’s going on with
it?”


Wardner’s concerned that this plan was rushed to the ballot without details on how it would work and
what kind of land will be purchased. She thinks something needs to be done about sprawl. But she’s not
sure this is the solution. And she also thinks residents won’t agree to the increased development that will
likely occur downtown and where she lives.”


“Personally, you know, I bought my piece of property because I live on a park and you know, we all like
trees and green space and I don’t think anyone wants townhouses or condos or a five story building in
their backyard.”


And building more homes downtown is a central part of the plan. Doug Kelbaugh is Dean of The
University of Michigan’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He says that to avoid sprawling
out, more people need to live in the city’s center.


“There aren’t enough people living downtown. It’s the living downtown, the downtown residential
development, that will do the most to decrease sprawl, decrease the number of commute trips, decrease
the length of commute trips, increase the walkability, increase the livability and the urbanity of Ann
Arbor lifestyles.”

Kelbaugh says if that denser development occurs, that means houses will have to be built on smaller lots.
That could curb housing price spikes by adding to housing supply. He said that if carried out responsibly,
Ann Arbor’s plan could be a small, but important first step in attacking sprawl.


“As long as gasoline is so cheap and farmland is so cheap, we will tend to have sprawl in America. This
is a major model that’s prevailed in America for 50 or 60 years, if not a little longer and it’s going to take
a little while to turn it around. But this is a significant beginning.”


Other towns are looking to preserve green space just like Ann Arbor’s doing. They’ll be closely watching
to see if it works.


For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.

Related Links

Tough Emissions Controls to Help Forest?

Environmentalists say upstate New York’s six million acre Adirondack Park is suffering the most damage from acid rain in the country. To help control that, the state could soon pass the toughest power plant emission regulations in the U.S. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brodie reports, some critics say the new regulations will not solve the problem:

Transcript

Environmentalists say upstate New York’s six million acre Adirondack Park is suffering the most damage from acid rain in the country. To help control that, the state could soon pass the toughest power plant emission regulations in the U.S. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brodie reports, some critics say the new regulations will not solve the problem:


The new regulations would force New York power plants to reduce emissions of the two leading causes of acid rain. The plants would have to cut sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than half of 1990 Clean Air Amendment levels. John Sheehan is the spokesman for the advocacy group, the Adirondack Council.


“We feel that New York is setting an example for the rest of the United States…this was the step that we needed to show the Midwest that we were willing to take in order to ask them to do the same thing.”


But many power plant owners in the state feel singling out New York’s facilities will put them at a competitive disadvantage. They also say reducing New York’s emissions will not prevent acid rain from reaching the Adirondacks. To do that, they say power plants across the country would have to adopt similar regulations. The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation is currently reviewing the draft proposal and public comment. The agency expects to have a final decision sometime this fall.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brodie.

City Ignites Green Space

Many cities create parks to try to incorporate green space into theirurban landscapes. But maintaining them can be expensive and laborintensive. Now, one city has created a unique solution–addingnaturalbeauty while saving money. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tasya Rosenfeld has the story: