Canada geese have taken over Evansville's Garvin Park. The city is looking for a solution

EVANSVILLE – Garvin Park has a problem. And that problem has feathers and defecates a lot.

Canada geese have overrun Evansville’s flagship greenspace, littering the trails with excrement, dirtying up the lake and causing a stench to linger in the air, city officials said.

The abundance of goose droppings could even lead to health concerns. Now the city is looking for answers.

What's the solution to Garvin Park's goose problem?

According to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, possible solutions range from euthanasia to relocation to nest control. Then there’s something the DNR calls “harassment,” which involves everything from sprinklers and motion lights to posting photos of dead geese around the park and piping in “goose distress calls.”

Whatever the solution, they all come with significant government oversight. Since Canada geese are considered a migratory bird – even though they don’t really migrate anymore – they’re protected under federal law. That means any landowner or municipality must file a permit with the U.S. Department of Fish & Wildlife before attempting mitigation efforts.

The state can also send a biologist or “control operator” to make sure things are done humanely.

Interim Evansville Parks and Recreation Director Steve Schaefer acknowledges the problem. He said officials considered a “controlled shoot” – basically hunting the geese on a small scale – but backed off last year when a federal game warden told them it would require "a shotgun to be used during a short period of time.”

Relocation fell flat, too. Schaefer said officials were told that if they loaded the geese into a truck and carted them somewhere else, the highly mobile birds would be strutting around Garvin again before the truck even got back.

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Over the years, the birds have gotten “hardier,” said Erik Beck, executive director of Mesker Park Zoo. Year-round green grasses and bodies of water that no longer freeze in the winter have made areas of the country so hospitable for Canada geese that they no longer need to migrate.

Why feeding geese is dangerous

People who feed them haven’t helped either. Many residents adore the birds, and the geese love the resulting handouts of bread and seeds. But those foods can either make them sick or unwilling to fend for themselves. Schaefer said he has pictures of people “opening up their (car) trunks full of old bread” and “feeding the geese on a daily basis.”

The city has since adopted some of the humane mitigation efforts recommended by Beck, who has fought his own goose problem on the West Side for more than 20 years. But any solution at Garvin will take time and a lot of effort, he said.

“If you have all the right variables for geese to hang out and be fed and be in a safe place, even if you were to euthanize or relocate, you’re going to have a new group move in,” Beck said. “I always say, ‘Hey, whatever you can, start doing something today.’ But it’s a pretty overwhelming task.”

How Mesker Park Zoo fixed its goose problem

With its large lake and healthy selection of grass, Mesker is a perfect place to start a goose family. And in the 1990s, the numbers got out of control.

Mothers, who can lay as many as six eggs each spring, would stash their nests and spend all summer and winter raising their goslings. Since it takes about a year for young birds to learn to fly, the geese were there for the long haul.

But a few years ago, the federal government changed how people can deal with Canada geese, Beck said. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service set up a portal where landowners can apply for a permit to destroy the geese’s nests and eggs.

The rules are strict. You have to apply before June 30 each year, provide the name of any employee or resident carrying out the work, and give a detailed report on everything you did.

Mesker’s federally approved method is one that even PETA stands behind: egg oiling.

Each spring, Beck said employees hunt down geese nests and apply a vegetable or corn oil mixture to the shells. That cuts off air to the egg’s membrane and kills the embryo before it can develop and hatch.

“Although puncturing and shaking may often prevent the embryo from developing, they are difficult techniques to perform reliably,” the PETA report “Humane Goose-Control Solutions” reads. “If done improperly, the embryo can continue to develop and produce a deformed gosling. Or the egg might leak, causing geese to renest elsewhere. Therefore, oiling and replacement are the preferred methods.”

Beck said oiling, as well as reminding visitors not to feed the birds, has made a tremendous difference. Geese that used to “hang out all winter” now stay for only brief visits.

“We still have Canada geese at the zoo,” he said. “There are flocks that come in and then move along.”

Goose problems at Garvin Park

That’s not the case at Garvin. Like at Mesker, the park’s conditions make it a perfect goose habitat.

Depending on the time of day, the number of geese can range from zero to around 75. They move in waddling hordes, feasting on the grass and gathering around human visitors they suspect of carrying snacks.

Schaefer said the city brought in an agent with U.S. Fish & Wildlife last year. It didn’t take him long to “immediately agreed there was … an overpopulation issue in Garvin Park.”

While they seem harmless at first blush, the birds cause several problems.

During egg-laying season, they can get aggressive toward anyone who wanders past their nests. Schaefer said he’s fielded several reports of “unruly encounters” at Garvin. The birds may hiss, charge or flap their wings.

“If defensive behaviors are observed, people should slowly walk away and give the goose space,” Indiana DNR posted on its website. “Most injuries from geese occur due to tripping and falling while trying to run.”

Meanwhile, the massive amount of excrement they leave behind has sullied nearly every part of Garvin, Schaefer said. It’s on the walking paths, the parking lot and the playground equipment.

It’s also in the lake.

“Since Indiana DNR annually stocks Garvin Park lake with trout for fishing, I had the idea of testing the water since the lake had a disgusting layer of film on top, likely from the excrement,” Schaefer said. “I had an initial conversation with the Vanderburgh County Health Department, however, have not moved forward with testing yet, as we are also updating our aquatic control agreements to treat several lakes that are park properties.”

Zach Voyles, a private lands supervisor with the Indiana Department of Fish & Wildlife, said goose excrement can raise the level of E. coli in the water.

“In any body of water there’s E. coli because it has wildlife and fish using it,” he said. “It’s just a matter to what degree.”

Adam Phelps, a waterfowl biologist with the state, said “to my knowledge, (there’s) no link between water contamination due to goose feces and human illness.” But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the droppings “contain many germs” that can infect humans.

Harassment

That’s part of the city’s – and the state’s – concern about overpopulation.

Voyles said there are issues with every state-sanctioned control method. Relocation efforts can only take place during the birds’ “flightless period” in the summer. Even then, they would come back eventually. Since the state wouldn’t promote using firearms in an urban setting like Garvin, hunting is a no-go as well.

“And (trap and euthanize) would only take care of those geese,” he said. “More geese, more than likely, would come because it’s a suitable habitat for them.”

The “harassment” techniques have flaws, too. Piping in distress calls or slapping up pictures of dead geese would make the park inhospitable for birds and humans alike. Other DNR suggestions such as air horns, blank pistols, propane cannons and “cracker shells from a shotgun” wouldn’t do much for the atmosphere, either.

There are less dramatic options, Voyles said. He mentioned egg oiling, as well as simple modifications to the park. The city could plant “aesthetically pleasing” shrubs or tall grasses around the lake’s shoreline to make it harder for the geese to access the water.

“I don’t know if you could ever completely eradicate the geese,” he said. “Nor would the public probably want that.”

In its report, PETA praised the geese as "highly emotional" beings who mate for life and cuddle for warmth.

"Geese possess many of the qualities that humans value and strive to attain," the report reads.

'Saving that park is important'

Still, something needs to be done at Garvin, Roberta Heiman said.

In a guest column published by the Courier & Press last month, the former parks board member and journalist called for a “controlled shoot” to cull the birds’ numbers.

In a subsequent interview, she lamented the state of Garvin as a whole. She said the massive amounts of excrement make the park look “unhealthy" and smell terrible. She blamed its rough state on both the geese and an apathetic public that doesn’t realize what a “treasure” the park is.

“Growing up, that park was beautiful for years and years,” said Heiman, 79. “It was designed by a student of the guy who designed … Central Park. It has those same features.”

To fix all our public parks, she said, Evansville residents may have to take matters into their own hands – donate money or volunteer time. The issues go well beyond the geese, she said, but the birds are a visible problem that have hounded the city for years.

She first became concerned about them five or six years ago when she sponsored a bicycle drive for kids at the nearby Dream Center. When they tried to ride along the trail, they found the goose excrement had made the path “slick.”

“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel in Evansville for Garvin Park. There are a number of ways to address this and we aren’t addressing it. And it shouldn’t cost a whole lot of money to do it,” she said. “You’re not going to please everybody with something like this. But saving that park is important. We need to treasure it and we need to do the responsible thing.

"And it’s not responsible to let it be ruined by this overpopulation of Canada geese.”

Contact reporter Jon Webb at jon.webb@courierpress.com.