Photo courtesy of Jane Fritz
In the early morning of June 28, 2023, four banded geese had returned to Sandpoint's City Beach park. They're among the few who didn't get rounded up and killed by Wildlife Services last week.
After a long and winding, fruitless search for an answer to its goose problem, Sandpoint city leaders decided to round up and kill all the geese they could find at City Beach park last week.
On June 15, Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad signed an agreement to pay $5,000 to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program (formerly known as Animal Damage Control) to send its workers in to euthanize the Canadian goose population at the popular city park.
On Friday, June 23, Wildlife Services captured 170 juvenile and adult geese and chemically asphyxiated them with CO2 gas, which is a method approved by the American Veterinarian Medical Association, says Jared Hedelius, the Idaho director of Wildlife Services.
In an emailed statement, Rognstad said the move was not an easy decision, but was necessary for public health.
For years, the city tried and failed to address the geese that live in the artificially sandy, grassy area created for people to enjoy Lake Pend Oreille. Geese poop a lot, and with the city not allowing dogs in the area, and grass being a staple of their diet, they've become quite comfortable living there in the summers.
"The city and its residents value wildlife," Rognstad's statement says. "City Beach, however, is a public park, not a wildlife sanctuary. We need to prioritize public health and recreation in our busiest city park. The only viable solution remaining at this point is a humane roundup and euthanization performed by professional wildlife managers."
But critics who've been advocating for the wildlife for years were shocked at the drastic measure.
Jane Fritz, a concerned resident who fought against the city's previous non-lethal goose management efforts as inhumane, was dismayed at the city's choice.
"I can't believe they did that," says Fritz, who caught wind of the plan last week but wasn't able to learn when it would take place.
Photo courtesy of Jane Fritz
Adult and juvenile geese were relaxing in Sandpoint's City Beach park on June 15. Unbeknownst to them or the photographer, the mayor signed a deal to kill them the same day.
Last Thursday, she and other concerned citizens hand counted at least 140 geese in the park. A few days later, as she drove by, Fritz says she saw maybe three geese, but she didn't realize a large number had already been killed.
Previously, the city tried rounding up the geese and tagging them with leg bands, working with state and federal agencies to relocate the banded geese in 2019, 2020 and 2021 far from the city.
But wild geese migrate, and they tend to return home. And return they did.
So Sandpoint City Council and staff looked for other options. Last year, after the avian flu prevented similar relocation efforts, the council approved a winter goose hunt in the heart of downtown. Only one goose was killed.
The city also consulted with GeesePeace, an organization that teaches cities how to manage goose populations, typically by finding their nests and coating the eggs in oil so they don't develop. The oil essentially suffocates the eggs.
According to the city, that method wasn't an option as the geese don't nest at the park or in city limits.
Sandpoint also tried to reach out to meat processors to see if the birds could be put to use as food should they be euthanized, but those "efforts were not successful," according to the city's emailed statement.
Because of ongoing concerns with the avian flu, the 170 birds that were killed were bagged and buried in a landfill, Hedelius says.
Fritz and others are upset the city didn't try other animal control methods. Away With Geese is one option they pushed for that involves installing solar powered amber lights that flash throughout the night at goose eye level to disrupt their sleep and discourage them from living in an area.
"Why would they not use the array or other methods?" Fritz asks.
She is skeptical the city park will ever be rid of geese while it remains a comfortable environment due to the way it was designed for human comfort.
"The only way that happens is with habitat change and habitat modification," Fritz says.
