A large Canada goose can poop an astounding 1 to 2 pounds per day. Roughly 250 of them regularly chow down on grass at Sandpoint City Beach, the man-made sandy park on Lake Pend Oreille, creating E. coli issues and leaving an unsightly layer of shit that people don't like to be around.
The city has so far tried scaring the geese off the public park with trained dogs and coyote decoys. It even corralled them during previous molting seasons (when they can't fly), banded their legs and drove them miles away in hopes they wouldn't return.
But nothing worked. With avian flu preventing the annual roundup and relocation efforts, the City Council approved the most drastic measure yet on Dec. 7: a goose hunt just blocks from the downtown core.
Sandpoint Police Chief Corey Coon told the council before their 4-1 vote authorizing the hunt that they'll use picnic tables as blinds.
"I've been told geese are pretty smart," Coon said. "They'll associate picnic tables with possibly hunters and they won't land, so hopefully that'll be a deterrent, but I think it's a couple years out before we get any good data."
Permits for hunting in the park over the next few weeks (set to be drawn Dec. 13) are regulated by Idaho Fish and Game, following U.S. Fish and Wildlife migratory bird rules.
Permitted hunters using nontoxic ammunition will be allowed to shoot toward the water two days each week between about 7 am and 10 am, with the season ending Jan. 13. Off-leash dogs can be used for bird retrieval those days, and cleanup needs to be done by 11 am so the park can reopen to the non-hunting public. Guidelines limit hunters to five geese per day, and any tags need to be reported.
Those upset at the idea of gunfire in the park during the holiday shopping season, or what some consider a wildlife slaughter, will have a designated area to protest, as interfering with a permitted hunt is illegal in Idaho.
As the Inlander reported in 2020, some environmentally minded residents felt that even tagging and relocating the birds was inhumane, so the hunt is sure to disturb some people. Jane Fritz, the concerned Sandpoint resident at the center of that story, is critical that the plan came together without public input and is upset the city chose death before trying other additional deterrents.
"It is a massacre, a bloodbath for Christmas," Fritz says. "They are worse than sitting ducks, and those geese who are flying in for a rest en route south in migration will also be victims." ♦