BOOKS: Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:
Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual
by Donald S. Heintzelman
Friends of Animals (777 Post Road, Suite 205, Darien, CT 06820),
2005. 16 pages, illus. $4.00.
“Just as world-renowned ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson
opposed mute swan egg-addling, Friends of Animals opposes addling
Canada goose eggs,” the FoA Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual
opens. “Addling–destroying eggs by shaking, piercing, or coating
the eggs with oil–is invasive and traumatic for these famously
protective nesters.”
Many humane organizations including GeesePeace reluctantly
promote addling as at least less invasive and traumatic than killing
geese. The moral issue involved is comparable to the question of
whether or not to spay a pregnant cat or dog, when the alternative
is that more homeless cats or dogs may be killed by animal control.
In New Jersey, for instance, with 4.3 non-migratory Canada
geese per square kilometer, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
recommends that as many as 57,000 geese should be killed during the
next 10 years, to try to achieve a 40% population reduction.
Intensive egg-addling is also part of the plan.