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City of York Council considering measures to control geese in Rowntree Park

8:00am Saturday 4th September 2010 in


WAYS of controlling geese in one of York’s most popular parks are to be examined after a wave of complaints from visitors.

Droppings left by the large goose population in Rowntree Park and the birds’ intimidating behaviour have sparked fresh calls for action.

A list of options drawn up by City of York Council officers includes carrying out a cull of the geese or using “non-lethal deterrents” such as distress calls or falcons to scare them away, encouraging people not to feed the birds and preventing new eggs hatching in the park by oiling them with paraffin.

The options will be discussed later this month at a decision session for the authority’s executive member for leisure, culture and social inclusion, Coun Nigel Ayre.

Coun Ayre, The Press understands, is in favour of the non-lethal options for controlling the geese.

In a written report, Dave Meigh, the council’s head of parks and open spaces, states: “This is a long-standing problem with the issue first being considered in October 1996.

“Letters regularly appear in The Press and the Green Flag judges (who assess the quality of parks and have given Rowntree Park an award every year since 2004) often comment on the problems caused by geese as one of the few negative aspects of the park.”

The Friends of Rowntree Park said they were “concerned” about the level of goose droppings. But they stated: “We feel it is essential to find measures which will reduce geese reproduction rates locally in a humane fashion”.

Coun Ayre said: “It is clear something needs to be done to manage the goose population to ensure residents and visitors are not put off visiting such a fantastic park.

“No single one of the proposed control methods will be effective in itself, so it will be necessary to use a range of different approaches to try to reduce the number of geese in the park. I hope the measures introduced in Rowntree Park will provide a good test as to which are the most effective measures which can be used in other areas.”

In 2005, a proposed cull of Canadian geese in Rowntree Park led to York-born Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench backing a campaign to save them, offering to rehouse the birds at her local swan sanctuary.

Comments(26)

smudge1 says...
8:09am Sat 4 Sep 10

Christmas is coming.......the goose is getting fat...Why not let the pensioners have a nice Christmas dinner. ??

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Silver says...
8:45am Sat 4 Sep 10

smudge1 wrote:
Christmas is coming.......the goose is getting fat...Why not let the pensioners have a nice Christmas dinner. ??
Simple and charitable I like it plus they are free range and maybe even organic

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West says...
11:22am Sat 4 Sep 10

Simple - fill in the pond and the geese will go elsewhere.

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Pedro says...
11:47am Sat 4 Sep 10

You create the ideal environment for animals and they will flock there! What do you expect?

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Woody Mellor says...
12:30pm Sat 4 Sep 10

If parents continue to ignore the 'do not feed the birds' signs and take their children to feed the birds then there is no hope of reducing the numbers.

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xpgold says...
12:39pm Sat 4 Sep 10

let's have done with it and shoot the darn things!!

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Older Sometimes Wiser says...
12:56pm Sat 4 Sep 10

Its not just geese ! Pigeons are becoming a total pest in the York Outer area with apparently one for every TV aerial! ( slight exaggeration).
At one time it was permissible for these to be shot as vermin, and there is a now urgent ned for culling measures to be taken before they take over urban gardens. If you cannot shoot them then some other means of control needs to be found.

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MLewisW says...
1:42pm Sat 4 Sep 10

they have every right to be there. We're the ones who like to build on their habitats.

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Woody Mellor says...
4:25pm Sat 4 Sep 10

Why haven't The Pess got an adverticle on the free festival in the park tomorrow ? Ah because it has nothing to do with the races. So everybody, there is a free festival in Rowntrees Park tomorrow!

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Guy Fawkes says...
4:37pm Sat 4 Sep 10

Simple and charitable I like it plus they are free range and maybe even organic.


Given the geese I've seen helping themselves to a meal out of the litter bins along the bank of the Ouse near Lendal Bridge, I'm a tad sceptical about the organic bit. In fact, cooking these geese and serving them up to old folks might be a way for their relatives to save on care home fees...

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pedalling paul says...
5:09pm Sat 4 Sep 10

I could flatten a few with my bike........

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Guy Fawkes says...
5:25pm Sat 4 Sep 10

If your bike can take out a goose without also flattening its rider in the process, I'm impressed! I recently gave a friend and his family a lift from York station to Helperby after they came back from a holiday in the middle of the night, and just past Flawith we scored a direct hit on a rabbit (it ran out too late to brake - no more than a second or two) with my front offside wheel. We all felt the impact quite strongly, and from the slight vibration in the steering wheel afterwards, I suspected that it had knocked the tracking out. When I looked under the car the following morning (after a slow and cautious drive home), I discovered that it had done more than that - it had bent the suspension wishbone quite noticeably! It was bad enough (though admittedly, somewhat worse for the rabbit) in a Ford Fiesta, though I don't like to think how I'd have ended up if I'd have been on a push bike.

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Lamplighter says...
6:03pm Sat 4 Sep 10

Alfred the great - thanks for the laugh!! Brilliant! ;0)

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Cost Accountant says...
7:23pm Sat 4 Sep 10

If Dame Judith Dench wants to take the geese let her have them free of charge or perhaps the city could charge her £1 each to help reduce the outstanding debt the city has.
All that debt and still planning to spend £40 million on a new headquarters.
Something much less costly would serve the purpose, probably much more cost effectively.

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Cost Accountant says...
7:23pm Sat 4 Sep 10

If Dame Judith Dench wants to take the geese let her have them free of charge or perhaps the city could charge her £1 each to help reduce the outstanding debt the city has.
All that debt and still planning to spend £40 million on a new headquarters.
Something much less costly would serve the purpose, probably much more cost effectively.

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old_geezer says...
8:31pm Sat 4 Sep 10

Our forebears would be dumbfounded at us not using this food resource.

Pity I'm a vegetarian, else I'd adopt smudge1's suggestion.

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King Edward says...
9:46pm Sat 4 Sep 10

Make the critics rehome them if they don't want them culled, and they can take the half a dozen collared doves here before I take them out of the sky and sell them to the local butcher.

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Fred the Shred says...
9:59pm Sat 4 Sep 10

The city is overrun with chavs and tourists too, should they be called also?

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RingRoadGooseParty says...
10:00pm Sat 4 Sep 10

just because we have allowed the population to increase like it has, i do not believe it is right to cull - or lets use the proper word , KILL the geese.

Of the measures listed as possibles, surely it makes sense to try the non-harmful ones first - e.g. deterrent noises, telling people not to feed the geese.

The thing about preventing the eggs hatching just seems horribly cruel to me???

As an animal-lover , I really don't agree with culling - I'd much much rather put up with getting pecked the odd time, and standing on lots of goose droppings if it means the birds live. I mean it's not exactly a great hardship, and the park is still a really nice place.

Peace festival thing should be fun tomorrow.

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RingRoadGooseParty says...
10:03pm Sat 4 Sep 10

tourist deterrents? lol

"DO NOT FEED THE TOURISTS"?

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xpgold says...
11:04pm Sat 4 Sep 10

A Selby pensioner has told how the RSPCA seized her beloved pet cat from the street and put him down within the space of 24 hours..
Let the RSPCA deal with the geese!

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Silver says...
10:50am Sun 5 Sep 10

xpgold wrote:
A Selby pensioner has told how the RSPCA seized her beloved pet cat from the street and put him down within the space of 24 hours..
Let the RSPCA deal with the geese!
RSPCA are definitely efficient then so they should. Even if they take 24 hours per geese the problem goes down. And to all animal lovers humans are animals too. Sure lets not cause undue suffering but quick and painless is a kindness still.

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sweet little grandma says...
5:55pm Sun 5 Sep 10

RingRoadGooseParty wrote:
just because we have allowed the population to increase like it has, i do not believe it is right to cull - or lets use the proper word , KILL the geese. Of the measures listed as possibles, surely it makes sense to try the non-harmful ones first - e.g. deterrent noises, telling people not to feed the geese. The thing about preventing the eggs hatching just seems horribly cruel to me??? As an animal-lover , I really don't agree with culling - I'd much much rather put up with getting pecked the odd time, and standing on lots of goose droppings if it means the birds live. I mean it's not exactly a great hardship, and the park is still a really nice place. Peace festival thing should be fun tomorrow.
Well I don't want to visit a park or the riverside for that matter that is covered in bird s***. I have been going to the park for the best part of 50 years and have never seen it as bad as it is now - you spend most of your time trying to dodge the droppings. This is not a healthy environment for young children to play in. Perhaps you and Dame Judi Dench would like to look after them!! Culling is the best way of restoring this park to its former glory!!

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moneyforwhat says...
10:00pm Sun 5 Sep 10

MLewisW wrote:
they have every right to be there. We're the ones who like to build on their habitats.
I'm with you on this one..... A few good downpours will generally wash the manure aspect away...the gardens then being organic. Strange that no-one latched on to that....likely too busy with thinking that humans have the ultimate right to everything (rather like the letter to The Press from the lady who thought cows have no right on the Ings). We know that there are too many. Culling is just a word for killing and it would be wonderful to hope there may be an alternative. They breed prolifically (as do many humans)....pity that someone may not invent something that could be put down with food in the form of a contraception.....(c
ould also apply to humans).

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RingRoadGooseParty says...
1:47pm Mon 6 Sep 10

contraceptive bread!! LOL everyone's a winner...

sweetoldwoman - we'd probably find the opinions of children, when faced with the option of the geese being killed, are split, just like the adult opinion is split.

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groble says...
4:20pm Wed 8 Sep 10

I'm all for introducing falcons. But how long until the press are writing an article about falcons spoiling roundtree park. and what do we release then? Jaguars? but what will control the Jaguar population? Bears?

Let's just lock the gates now and let the animals have their wilderness back now before we have bears roaming the streets of york and crashing in to Betties to swipe some picnic baskets.

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City of York Council is considering measures to control geese in the city’s Rowntree Park City of York Council is considering measures to control geese in the city’s Rowntree Park

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