Canada Geese

Eileen Manion

No matter how many times I step in goose poop, watching the distinctive V formation of Canada geese, hearing their honking communication signals as they migrate south from Montreal tugs at my heart in some indefinable way.

Maybe because I remember that in the 1950s Canada geese were believed extinct. Over-hunting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries almost did for them what it did to the passenger pigeon.

However, in 1962, a small flock was found in Minnesota, and thanks to efforts of conservationists who bred the birds in captivity and then released them into the wild, the geese have not only been restored but also have thrived.

As vegetarians, they can adapt to so many places — golf courses, parks, ponds attached to apartment complexes, nursing homes, assisted living facilities — anywhere they find water and grass. They’ve integrated very successfully into our human environments where many of their predators — foxes, hawks, eagles, wolves — have almost disappeared.

Though some Canada geese still migrate (seeing and hearing their flights is a reliable marker of season change in spring and fall) many have taken up permanent residence in the U.S.

They don’t need to worry about passports or immigration status.

Although some will tell you they are dangerous and aggressive, I always feel a bond with them, especially when I meet geese outside Canada. They may look aloof and dignified, but don’t mind if I approach to take pictures.

Canada geese mate for life and are extremely protective of their goslings who usually remain with their parents for the first year of their lives. Who can resist smiling when you see a string of little ones walking or swimming between Mom and Dad?

By now you think I’m being cloyingly sentimental about birds most people these days regard as pests. If they hang out near your lawn, you’ll see lots of their watery excrement.

But don’t Canada geese represent one of the paradoxes of our relationship with the nonhuman world?

When species are in decline, as Canada geese were in much of the 20th century, we regard them with romantic nostalgia. Think of all those photos of cuddly polar bears and grizzlies we see on calendars mailed to us by conservation groups seeking donations.

But in recent decades Canada geese have been so wildly successful, we’ve forgotten how fragile they seemed less than a century ago. As entitled humans, we resent their intrusion into “our” space — as we do with gulls and pigeons.

Some animals don’t mind proximity to humans — squirrels, chipmunks, rats. Others have a hard time adapting and may disappear no matter how many glossy calendars we put on our walls celebrating the diversity of the wild.

Humans have been encroaching on the habitats of other animals for centuries; we know we have only ourselves to blame if we displace all the gorillas, lions, tigers, and bears. Any discussion of endangered species will list “loss of habitat” as a factor in their decline.

Now, with droughts and fires in some parts of the world and floods in others, we too are losing habitat. Many attribute the displacement of peoples in the Middle East, Africa, and Central America, at least in part, to climate migration caused by global warming.

Can we adapt to greater proximity to one another as we confront our own habitat losses? Or will we just ignore the problem, build walls to keep out the displaced, insist they must be someone else’s responsibility?