In 2016 the city of Mishawaka hired a company to round up and kill 400 Canadian geese because of problems they were causing in parks. The move prompted a candlelight vigil for the geese then outside City Hall. But nine years later geese remain a problem and the city says it’s trying again to get rid of them.
The city has decided not to do any interviews on the matter but on Friday it issued a statement saying goose poop damages park property and creates unsanitary conditions, and that geese can be aggressive toward people. So, after trying less severe methods without success, the city obtained a permit from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The permit allowed the city to hire a DNR-approved contractor to capture the geese and humanely move them to state-approved areas. Another type of permit allows the geese to be killed but the city didn’t obtain one of those.
A DNR spokesman said the geese already have been relocated. Indeed, on Monday I visited three Mishawaka park areas along the St. Joseph River— Central Park, Battell Park and the Ironworks Plaza — and saw no geese.
But their absence could again be short-lived. The DNR notes on its website that relocating geese like this is “not a long-term solution. Geese have strong homing instincts and often return to the area where they learned to fly, even after being translocated hundreds of miles away.”
