And I haven’t stopped telling them about it since. Just last year I told them to eliminate the geese from downtown. Besides the fact that they are mean and chase you, they cover the bike trail from Falls Park to Cliff Avenue in crap. What a great way to welcome visitors to our Multi-Million dollar River Greenway, covered in crap. When I first complained 20 years ago, it was at Covell Lake, and how a group of idiots kept feeding the crap making machines, they didn’t really stop and now we have it city wide. And not just crapping up our parks, it is a safety issue at the Airport.

So you would think after years of warning the city about this, they would take action. Nope, until now;

“They were absolutely fouling the fairways and the greens, making holes in the putting greens on some occasion and then just golfers having to navigate through goose droppings,” Jansa said. “It just kind of reached critical mass this year.”

So I guess when the rich golfers in town complain, than the city does something about it. I think a semi-automatic weapon in the Spring would work wonders, and donate the meat to the Banquet for a Spring Goose Feed, or freeze it and give it to Feeding South Dakota;

About 80 geese were slaughtered and are being processed for food pantry donations. Seven goslings — baby geese — were set free in other locations.

If I want to see that kind of nature I will take a nice country drive. I live in the city for a reason, and it’s not to get crapped on by a bunch of mean, goofy birds.

15 Thoughts on “I warned the City of Sioux Falls about the geese problem 20 years ago

  1. guest on June 28, 2017 at 9:33 am said:

    dont pat yourself on the back too hard. I believe the city passed an ordinance in 2000 to ban feeding geese at Covell lake. Although few geese remain many have moved to Arrowhead park.

    I believe the airport has done several things to keep geese away from airport with use of dogs and other means of scaring and hazing birds away with loud noise disturbances. It was also escalated back in 2009 after that plane went down in the Hudson river.

    there has also been collaborative depredation hunts coordinated with the GFP and landowners around cities perimeter

    many entities have and continue to take action and they are not just starting to do something now as you are implying.

  2. l3wis on June 28, 2017 at 9:38 am said:

    I agree, I’m just wondering when they are going to address the problem DT. It has been getting worse and worse over the past 5 years.

  3. The D@ily Spin on June 28, 2017 at 11:03 am said:

    There are nets with parachutes shot from a shotgun that are used to envelope small drones and bring them down without damage. How about a city non-lethal goose hunt? That’ll get national attention. Huether could dress like the hunter in ‘Jumange’. Birds could be taken away to a waterfowl area where they can be gunned down for staged hunts (like tame pheasants).

  4. Fluff Mc Fluffin on June 28, 2017 at 2:48 pm said:

    You and your friends are kind of goofy birds that like to crap on the city a lot. They don’t chase you away with dogs and loud noises…..

  5. l3wis on June 28, 2017 at 2:52 pm said:

    They did addle my eggs once.

    I’ve never crapped on the city, I like SF. Now the people who run it, yes, worthy of being crapped on.

  6. I’m chuckling at the notion that the “rich golfers” in Sioux Falls are going to the city-owned, public Elmwood golf course.

  7. Larry on June 29, 2017 at 6:44 am said:

    There’s never been anyone so impactful at critical times in our city’s history. It’s almost Gumpian in scope. Run Forrest, run.

  8. l3wis on June 29, 2017 at 8:47 am said:

    MW, that would be funny. But the golf course referenced in the article was Prairie Green, not Elmwood, which IS a public course, but if you ever take a drive around the course, you will notice there isn’t too many lower-income homes surrounding the course.

  9. Speaking of the geese, I was recently on the bike trail the other day, where it parallels Kiwanis Avenue, and I had two geese begin to attack me. One was attacking my rear bicycle tire, while the second one flew around me like a crazed turkey. Apparently, I scared them, when I jumped the curb to get on the bike trail. A car on Kiwanis witnessed the entire incident and I think they were more startled than me. In fact, after the birds settled down, that car slowed down and the car passengers talked to me about the incident for a moment.

    I must also say, that after this incident, I have a new found respect for the credence behind Jimmy Carter’s “Killer Rabbit Incident.” 😉

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

  10. OK, but still…”rich golfers” and municipal golf courses seldom end up in the same sentence, regardless of where the course is located.

  11. l3wis on June 29, 2017 at 2:38 pm said:

    EC, I have been attacked at least 3 times, I usually ride fast enough before they can connect with their beaks. One day I saw some a couple of junior high boys with large branches chasing them and trying to whack them. When they saw me, they tried to hide and pretend that they weren’t doing anything. I stopped my bike and said, “Please, carry on.”

  12. l3wis on June 29, 2017 at 2:39 pm said:

    MW, golfing isn’t a sport of the low-income to begin with. I just find it funny that if the ‘golfers’ complained they get their way, but the lowly bicyclists and walkers can just go to Hell.

  13. To Determined Be on June 29, 2017 at 2:46 pm said:

    The funny thing is that a few years ago at Prairie Green the greens keepers were bringing their dogs to work to harass the geese and it was quite effective. Supposedly homeowners complained about them harassing the geese and they had to stop. I think they should have started feeding the geese on the homeowner side of those ponds.

    If geese weren’t the equivalent of the devil’s flying carp, I would hunt them just for the point of the matter.

  14. anominous on July 1, 2017 at 12:04 pm said:

    The master plan was to get the F-35’s to scare them off.

  15. Carpenter on July 8, 2017 at 10:10 pm said:

    Yep rich people suck. It us amazing how things get solved when they are inconvenienced. There are a lot of haters here . Wake up and smell the coffee.

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