Goose takes dart to the neck

CEDAR RAPIDS - Crowds of giant Canada geese and the droppings they leave behind have been flummoxing city officials and many residents for years.

Even so, Parks Superintendent Daniel Gibbins on Thursday expressed anger that someone had shot a dart into the neck of a goose that, nonetheless, seemed fine Wednesday evening in the Robbins Lake area at Ellis Park.

'As frustrating as the goose problem is around there, they are beautiful animals,” Gibbins said. 'And no one wants to see a goose darted like this. It's really inhumane and frustrating.”

Gibbins said the person shooting the dart broke federal and state harvesting and hunting laws.

On Wednesday evening, a city animal control officer attempted to capture the darted goose, but the goose wanted no part of the help.

Gibbins said an adult goose can be nearly impossible to catch right now because they have not yet shed their flight feathers as a prelude to growing new ones.

If the goose could be caught right now, 'you got to be careful because they'll be snapping at your face,” he said.

Gibbins said the city typically gets a report of a goose shot with a dart most years, and sometimes a goose has the ability to pull the dart out, he said.

In mid-month, the city will conduct its annual goose roundup with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which is an exercise to move about 500 geese a year out of the city. Hopefully, the goose with the dart will be among the geese spotted and herded into a pen so the dart can be removed, Gibbins said.

Sufficiently frustrated with the geese overpopulation in Cedar Rapids, the city two months ago unveiled a remote-controlled, dog-looking craft with wheels - called the Fowl Intercept and Dispersal Officer or FIDO - to chase geese from areas people heavily use.

Gibbins said FIDO has done a good job of moving geese out of Noelridge Park, though he said ducks in the park could not care less about it.

He said FIDO has helped move geese from the new riverfront McGrath Amphitheatre, but he said the geese there are in large enough numbers that they get the courage to come back.

'It's definitely much better than last year,” Gibbins said. 'But I'll tell you, they're pretty hardheaded.”

A year ago, too, the city imposed on a ban on feeding geese on city property. A first violation is a $75 fine, a second within a year, a $150 fine, and a third, a $300 fine.

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