Inside Michigan’s New Canada Geese Killing Policy

OAKLAND COUNTY, Mich — After 50 years of removing and relocating Canada geese from communities around Michigan, the state is changing course.

At the end of the summer, a new policy was quietly implemented to euthanize any geese that needed to be removed.

If a Canada goose needs to be removed from a water source, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources will not rehome it. The department said it had no choice but to kill her now.

About 80 years ago, Canada geese were almost extinct in Michigan – today there are more than 300,000 animals. It leads to more conflicts with people.

“Their population can grow – there are no natural enemies,” Andy Sarkinsian said. “Especially if there are islands in your lake where foxes and raccoons can’t get to their nests.”

Sarkisian lives on Lake Sherwood in Commerce Township, where the goose population exploded this summer.

“We’ve had beach closures because of the E. coli issues,” Sarkisian said. “This population dumped 4 to 5 tons of feces into the lake, resulting in a health problem.”

Lake Sherwood did what many other lake associations have done in recent years and rounded up the geese.

“The raid was our last resort. We did everything we could to dissuade them – be it strobe lights, banners, goose strings, exclusion zones or destroying nests – and yet the population grew far too large,” said Sarkisian.

In June, a team from Goose Busters was brought in to carry out the raid.

Larry Carsell, a retired Vietnam veteran who now rescues waterfowl, watched as the geese were rounded up.

“People can be pretty cruel,” Carsell said. “They pushed a group of about a dozen or so, went back out, got another big group of about 80 and they brought them up and separated them from the moms and dads and everyone was honking and throwing everything into the trailer. You can tell they’re upset – they have feelings – people don’t notice, but they notice.”

The DNR has trapped geese and relocated them since 1972, but Carsell and other waterfowl advocates got wind that something would be different this time and followed them to another location.

“You could see the workers preparing something to bring the geese in and I finally got out and talked to them and the DNR guy said, ‘Yeah, we’re gassing these geese,'” Carsell remembers.

The DNR said it’s a humane way to deal with the geese, but Carsell disagrees.

“That’s an excuse. Geese can hold their breath for a long time. They go underwater for a long time. This carbon dioxide burns their throat and their lungs and they suffer for about half an hour because they can hold their breath so many times,” Carsell said. “There are a lot of things you can do other than round them up and kill them all.”

Killing waterfowl is nothing new for the DNR. Mute swans are often killed, sometimes shot, but unlike mute swans, Canada geese are not an invasive species.

Barbara Avers, a waterfowl and wetlands specialist with the DNR, said they lacked suitable habitat for relocation. She said there are several other reasons why geese are euthanized – including the fact that they won’t stay in the new habitats.

“The most important and concerning reason is that a few years ago we had a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza that emerged in North America, and that was something that was circulating at the time,” Avers said. “We canceled all relocation activities because we didn’t want the virus to potentially spread throughout the state.”

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Carsell believes Michiganders would do more if they knew what was happening to the geese.

Goose Busters removed the geese but did not address the euthanasia. A company official said they have never killed a single goose and have stopped working with the state over the new policy, which is dramatically impacting business.

You can read the Michigan DNR’s full guidelines below: