Our Geese Fly West

  You often hear of the migration of Canadian Geese.  Come winter months, the geese will fly south seeking a warmer climate where food is plentiful.  Then, come spring, they make the long flight back northward to nest and raise their broods.  It has been this way forever but, then, people got in the way and caused a bit of confusion, to say the least.  Canadian Geese were once a prime source of food for a lot of folks.  Because of their size and the sheer numbers (at the time), the geese were hunted to near extinction.  Alas!  People figured out a little late that their over-hunting was causing them a lack of hunting targets...the geese.  That said...something HAD to be done to remedy the situation.  The bright idea of captive hatching of goose eggs was the solution.  Yes.  It did solve the problem of the missing geese but the people doing the hatching merely released the young geese wherever they were hatched.   That was the beginning a problem for the geese and people who do not like geese pooping on their pristine lawns.

  Geese, like other migratory birds, do not automatically have it ingrained in their heads that they need to start a migration.  Migration is a learned deed and not instinctual.  Young birds follow what their parents do.  So when the elder birds take flight to avoid spending winter where food may become scarce, the juveniles follow.  The captive bred and released birds have no parents to follow so they stay where they were "planted".  No problem...except the birds are prolific when not faced with hunters shooting them.  Now people are complaining that there are too many geese when it is actually that the geese are just staying put in the only homes they have ever known.  No one taught them to migrate!  Yep, they do congregate in large flocks.  They do poop on the pretty, green grass.  They are loud, bossy and hungry all of the time.  In spite of all of that, they are pretty and rather interesting to watch.

  Here, we have resident geese.  Occasionally, a pair will attempt to nest in the marshes of the Bayou but, usually, their attempts are met with disaster as there are far too many predators roaming those same marshes.  The geese choose a slightly more inland nesting grounds around the many ponds, lakes and rivers.  Each year, the flocks grow in size and the birds appear to be healthy.  To answer the question as to why our geese fly west, we only have to understand just what is west of the Bayou.  Not far down the shoreline, there is a haven for wildlife better known as my cousin's yard.  Michelle feeds hundreds of geese and ducks that flock there twice each day.  She puts out enough grain for them, deer, raccoons and any other critters that might be hungry.  So, you see, our geese fly west to feast upon free food...I don't blame them!  Just because the geese do not have the instinctual habit of migrating north does not mean that they are stupid!  They just migrate where the food is!   Now you know!