Limiting number of geese in park is needed to manage wildlife

Opinion: July 17, 2014 at 12:00a.m.

On July 14, a Mill Creek MetroParks meeting with the park commissioners was held at the Davis Center at Fellows Riverside Gardens, with over 200 people attending. The majority of them spoke in protest over the killing of Canada geese in the park.

What was not discussed was government wildlife management in the U.S.

My parents told me that years ago, the abundance of flying carrier pigeons would blot out the sun. In the Old West, passengers on trains would shoot at the herds of bison, just for sport. Because of the loss of many kinds of fowl and animals, the practice of wildlife management came about.

Today, we have a season to harvest deer, ducks, etc. We have rules on the size of fish we can keep. Placing a limit on the number of Candada geese in an urban park was the right decision as far as wildlife management is concerned. Mill Creek Park is not an animal sanctuary; it is a place where animals and the public must live in concert.

But have no fear. There are many Canada geese in the park. Just don’t feed them, and they’ll go home. Maybe.

Bob Bakalik, Youngstown

Send Canada Geese at Mill Creek to the yards of whiners, critics

I cannot believe all these PEOPLE people are still harping and whining about euthanizing about 200 wild geese.

The geese would never have been a problem in the first place if “the public” had obeyed the “Do Not Feed the Animals” signs. But all these “animal lovers” know better than the wildlife professionals so they went ahead and fed the geese anyway, causing the geese to become aggressive and dangerous. If you’ve never had the pleasure of being bitten by a goose, let me enlighten you. They bite and then twist, and it hurts like bloody heck.

I am sick of all the knee-jerk reactions based purely on emotions. Many people do not give a flying fig about the health and well-being of the geese or any other animals in Mill Creek Park. I feel this way due to the 90 percent-plus of the cars that go speeding so they don’t see the deer and fawns that I see, nor the flocks of wild turkeys. They don’t see them because they are speeding, on the phone and way too busy and important to notice the owl sitting on a log just 6 feet from the road, or the doe and twin fawns grazing at the edge of the woods on the golf course, or any of the other marvelous, once in a lifetime things I have seen.

These goose lovers also do not place any value on human life, as many of their Facebook posts suggest that park employees should have been killed rather than the geese. Seriously? A goose’s life more important than a human’s?

Personally, I would like to give Mill Creek Park employees, especially the park police, a huge “thank you” for being more interested in the welfare and safety of the public. I appreciate what you did and what you do. I obey the rules. I don’t drive through the park and throw my burger bag or pop can out on the side of the road, like so many do. And I also know maybe now I can walk my wee dogs around Lake Newport without having to worry about freaking wild geese attacking them and or goose excrement all over the road, the grass, the paths. Goose feces carry diseases that are not only dangerous to your pets, but also to people.

So if “the public” is so bent out of shape about the overpopulation of Canadian geese, please forward your address to Mill Creek officials and ask to have the problem geese sent to your yard. I’m sure your neighbors won’t mind ... much.

Edward Norman, Youngstown

Mill Creek is beholden to taxpayers

Upon attending the Mill Creek MetroParks board meeting last week, I was left perplexed. ( I was forced to remove a sign I had posted on my vehicle on supposed public property.) Neither the board nor administrator Dennis Miller seemed to have a concept that the funds for the fiscal outlays they approved were not of their making. They seemed to not have a clue that they were beholden to the taxpayers — their purported overseers.

On the subject of the extermination of the geese, there was no explanation as to why the taxpaying public was not informed of the intention of the park to send these helpless geese to the gas chamber. Of course, there were the usual mea culpas, the feigned statements of regret and contrition, yet there was no truth behind their empty, hollow words. Meeting attendees were told that fecal matter from geese posed a health problem.

An unbiased eye needs to be focused on the going-ons in the treasure that is Mill Creek Park, to see what is really happening behind the scenes. No further tax levies should be approved until the public is informed fully of activities that endanger not only the park, but the community as a whole. off and ignored as per usual.

John Malley, Youngstown