Denver Parks and Recreation released a new plan to manage the city’s goose population that has drawn controversy among environmental groups.
Among the solutions to manage the goose population in the city is culling them and processing the food for human consumption to be donated to organizations that help feed the needy.
The city says the growing goose population has created sanitary issues in the parks, along with the growing human population that has “contributed to human-goose conflicts.”
Geese, which are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, require federal permits to regulate the populations.
Roundups, which reportedly began last month, are being conducted by U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services agents.
Part of the city’s “Goose Management Program” includes culling geese, which means dispatching them to control populations. Dispatched geese would then be processed and donated to charitable organizations for human consumption or incinerated.
“Once captured, geese would either be shipped to poultry processing locations for processing for human consumption and donated to charitable organizations or euthanized and either buried or incinerated,” the plan says.
While the Parks Department has always included goose management in its strategies, culling the geese and donating the meat is reportedly a new method.
The city says lethal methods are among the most effective ways to handle goose populations.
“The advantage of this lethal management is that it would be applied directly to the problem goose population, its effects are obvious and immediate, and carries no risk that the geese will return or move and create conflicts elsewhere,” the plan states.
Environmental groups in the city that oppose lethal methods have criticized the plan as inhumane.
A petition opposing the goose culling in the city by United Poultry Concerns was circulated starting July 3.