Very interesting article and plan of action to the concept. I believe this in most cities in American has become a common epidemicl in "CITY FOLK" ideal thoughts. When living in Fort Wayne, In the local college IPFW (Indiana Purdue of Fort Wayne) had a resident summer and wintering poplulation of 100+ greater dark geese. Why not, they had and adequate supply of manicured grass throughout the year and the St. Mary River which flowed freely even during the coldest of winters below the dam. A positive for waterfowl and other wildlife but becomes a negative for locals.
Where I grew-up in Paducah we had Noble Park. A community park with about a 3 acre lake. For years locals have taken their kids there, giving crackers and bread to the local resident domesticated ducks and geese. A problem occured in the 90s with a bad winter. Local migrating populations of geese flocked to the pond because the great ice opening fountain, opened up a sizable watering hole. The problem is they their habits changed, I call it the "SNOW BUNNY" syndrome. They just never left. But you would ask why not, well they are waterfowl on welfare. If you had every thing you needed why pick-up and leave.
There is starting to be large amounts of complaints around Houston where I live now in the various Housing complexes that are new and going-up. They create large ponds in these complexes of an acre to 4 acres, stock the ponds with fish, and place local domesticated ducks in some of the ponds. A friend of mine lives in a community where a local population of Mexican Whistling Ducks have learned a behavior of any object shorter than 4 ft means food. Some times during the year it can look like a migration came through with not a couple of flocks but literally hundreds of birds on each of the ponds. The funny thing is the complaining population are there with their kids throwing bread and crackers.
It's funny how are society pushes natural and green initiatives but in the face of using a natural methods to control it becomes the greater of two evils. It comical how nature works on the premise of "Build it and we will come" an humanity believes this is intrusive. It just proves one aspect of nature holds true, a primary goal of survival. It is not the smartest or necessarily the strongest that survives but the ability to change. An actually I am happy to see this occurring.
Regards,
Kristan
Hard to imagine that.
