The urban Mississippi River is being overrun by an over abundant goose population. This is a serious problem that affects the water quality of the river and the quality of the shoreline. This summer I have been spending time working on a solar powered canoe, traveling up and down the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. I work on a wide variety of river related issues and love being on the water. I am always surprised at how few boats are on the river considering how beautiful some parts of the river are. The river gorge is an under appreciated national treasure and the area above the North Interpretive Center Park is really interesting and a challenge to navigate. The Mississippi River is still too polluted to be an officially a swimmable river with one of the major problems being fecal coliform pollution. Big Rivers are hard to study but a recent study using DNA identified birds as a major contributor of fecal coliform pollution in the study area. Bohemian Flats and the area near the Park Headquarters are totally inundated by these urban squatters but they are everywhere up and down the river. The Park Board has used some techniques to discourage some of the goose populations but that just moves them around. As someone who is loathe to kill anything but ticks and mosquitos its is a hard to advocate killing geese but that is probably what needs to happen. If there is a non lethal method of population control that would be great and less controversial. I think the solution is to remove the population of non migrating geese. I would really appreciate additional knowledge and expertise of how to address this problem and a plan that could be implemented with existing resources. Free goose dinner? Disguise them as large morning doves? Thanks, Scott Vreeland Seward REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
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