Anacostia wetlands threatened by rCg

I mentioned about the problem created by the rCg (resident Canada geese) against the Anacostia wetlands, and now I've finally found a well-written coverage from the City Paper that I'd like to share. (Thanx BN) Please read on.

(1) The gun hunting idea never went through. PETA (people eating tasty animals, haha) opposed to the lethal control of rCg, bummer. All proposed options have issues. We just can't win (not yet though). (2) Replanting wild rice is not tenable because it gets mowed down. (3) Dogs and noisemakers is only a temporary showdown because dogs get tired and noisemakers annoy the tourists more than the rCg. (4) Egg addling/oiling will keep the population in check, but it will not lead to a significant decrease for some time. The results of the count support this idea. I like idea no. 1: lethal control. Come on, people (PETA!). This option will reduce most rCg and will keep the population in check. Step back from the ethical viewpoint a bit and look at the big picture. Man makes mistakes, how do you suppose we learn from them if you won't let us?

It took 750,000 plant seedlings and $6 million to re-create Kingman Marsh. Shredding it was quick work for the resident geese.

For months after the planting, the marsh did beautifully—so well that the Army Corps, the National Park Service, and the D.C. government decided to remove the fencing during the winter of 2001. That decision proved to be an expensive lesson: Never underestimate the appetite of the resident Canada goose. In the words of Dick Hammerschlag, who monitored Kingman annually from 2000 to 2004, “the geese came in and shredded the marsh” that spring, eating all the newly accessible soft young plants as they emerged. The area lost approximately 80 percent of its vegetation cover, as well as species richness and diversity, according to a report written by Hammerschlag, who works for the U.S. Geological Survey. In areas without enough plants, water flow washed away the silt, lowering the marsh floor by a couple of inches. Wetland plant seeds have a low tolerance for flooding: If the water is too high, they won’t rebound. “It was a vicious cycle,” Hammerschlag says. “The marsh couldn’t outgrow the geese.”[...]

Steve McKindley-Ward, a horticulturist with the private, nonprofit Anacostia Watershed Society, has been trying to cultivate wild rice and other plants in Kingman Marsh. He and others have recreated a field of anti-goose fencing consisting of circular wire “exclosures,” each 30 feet across. Every man-made attempt to tinker with nature has its drawbacks, and in the case of the fencing, says McKindley-Ward, the wild-rice plants end up being too well-protected. The fencing keeps out not only geese but all grazers, including beavers, muskrats, and herons. Subject to no grazing, the plants grow too thick—a problem that causes disease in wild rice.[...]

Perhaps that’s because there’s a lot to debate. Start with the fact that the goose quandary is a man-made problem; activists opposing goose kills invoke the argument that the current situation is not the goose’s fault. “Because of the way we manage landscapes, there are more geese, and many that aren’t migratory. But it’s all our doing, all our making,” says John Hadidian, director of the Humane Society of America’s Urban Wildlife Program. Killing geese to save wetlands is “convoluted and tortuous logic that doesn’t speak well to our ecological wisdom and certainly doesn’t speak well of our humane treatment of animals.”[..]

Although the formal assessment process started more than a year ago, the need to address the problem was evident long before that. “I began discussions with NPS on this back at the end of 2002. I’m not exactly proud to say that over 3.5 years has passed without any real action, but this is not due to my lack of trying,” wrote the D.C. Watershed Protection Division’s Pete Hill in an e-mail.[...]

Goose reduction requires a weapon more powerful than vegetable oil, a fact that places ever more pressure on the Park Service’s ongoing deliberations on the goose boom.

I don't know what's going to happen with the marsh restoration project. Anacostia is part of the Chesapeake watershed. It's the only local river where I kayak on. It needs to be rebuilt back to better water quality. How are we gonna do this with all the bureaucracy and the "oh they're (giant rGg) eating the wild rice, how cute" mentality!? Ugh, bureaucrats grind my gears.

(Fight on, you guys. How's your back, SMW?)