400 geese being herded out of Cedar Rapids; eggs may be oiled to prevent hatching

Herding geese isn't like herding cats. It's easy with the right number of people.

This week, a contingent of 27 city workers, 14 Iowa Department of Natural Resources employees and five volunteers rounded up 400 geese at Ellis Park, along the Cedar River near downtown and on the and Jones Park Golf Course.

It's an annual event, Daniel Gibbins, the city's parks superintendent, noted Wednesday, adding that the workers simply walk geese into a pen, from where the birds, one at a time, are placed in crates for shipping.

Of the 400 geese, 274 were young goslings which were separated from the adults and taken to a different out-of-county wildlife preserve than the adults. The preserves are in Johnson and Tama counties, Gibbins said. He said splitting up the adults and the young is an attempt to acclimate the young to a place other than Cedar Rapids so that they don't return here.

Gibbins said the geese were rounded up along Robbins Lake in Ellis Park, along the Cedar River above the 5-in-1 dam near downtown and at the Jones golf course. The event takes place now because the adults have shed their old flying feathers and haven't yet replaced them, he said.

The roundup is only so effective, Gibbins noted, though he said the geese populations at the city's golf courses are smaller than those along the river, so golfers at the Jones course now should notice some difference in geese numbers.

Next year, Gibbins is considering a new program here in which oil is placed on goose eggs to prevent them from developing and hatching.

He said most geese go north for the summer and south for the winter, though Cedar Rapids has a resident population of geese and some open water in winter that keeps geese here.

The city does post some signs asking people not to feed the geese, with limited success. Feeding geese keeps them here, Gibbins said.

He added that some neighboring states round up geese and butcher them and give the food to food pantries and shelters. But he has not heard of a similar program in Iowa, he said.