The town of Camillus still has not killed any geese at Veterans Memorial Park. Parks director Eric Bacon says that at least for now, he doesn’t intend to.
Bacon was issued a permit from the U.S. Bureau of Fish and Wildlife Sept. 20 to kill up to two geese a day and 20 geese total.
After reading of this news in the paper, a local farmer came to Bacon with a suggestion.
“I used to have a problem with blackbirds,” Bacon recalled the farmer saying. “I think I still have blanks in my barn. Do you want to try them?”
Bacon took him up on the offer. On Oct. 18 he went to Gillie Lake with a parks employee certified in shotgun use and found roughly 200 geese in the pond. The gunman fired a few blanks into the air and all but two geese fled the scene.
“Within 15 minutes, all of them came back, plus probably another 800 more,” Bacon said. “It was bizarre.”
The shots were a test to see if the very reasoning behind obtaining the permit — that shooting a few geese would show the others that the park was not a safe place to inhabit — was sound.
“I’m not convinced that with migratory geese, killing 20 geese is going to solve the problem,” he said.
“I don’t want to kill geese, I really don’t, so we’re trying everything else.”
Bacon said following initial reports of the permit, he heard from many concerned animal rights activists. He talked to the humane society among others, and was referred to a group called Geese Peace.
“Anything you want to know about Canadian geese, I’m your guy,” he said.