Hundreds of geese rounded up, taken away from Cedar Rapids

About 475 Canada geese were recently captured and removed from Cedar Rapids as part of the Department of Natural Resources' annual effort to ease congestion around parks and golf courses.

About 380 geese were removed from the Ellis Park area, with the remainder of the Cedar Rapids geese rounded up at Twin Pines and Jones municipal golf courses.

Near Solon, crews removed about 125 geese from Lake Macbride, about 45 from Coralville's Brown Deer Golf Course and 25 from the S&G Quarry, south of Iowa City.

Crews from the DNR and local communities participated in the roundup and relocation effort.

Early in the summer, Canada geese have molted their flight feathers and are earthbound for a couple of weeks. Workers target areas with high numbers of geese, herd them into a fenced area and load them for a trip out of town.

“We take the young ones and the adult geese to different release points," explains DNR wildlife biologist Tim Thompson. “The adults will likely return; if not this summer, then next year as they migrate north again. The young will imprint on their new, rural, location and return there next year.”

Wildlife workers banded a few dozen adult geese which stayed behind. Recovery of those bands in the future will tell biologists more about migration habits and age structure of the big waterfowl.