We spotted a story that many may find funny — though it’s no laughing matter to farmers.
There are nearly 4 million so-called “resident Canada geese” in the lower 48 states. Resident Canada geese do not migrate like other geese. Instead, they make their homes in fairly stable locations, often growing fat on young corn or soybean plants. Farmers’ losses to the hungry fowl reach millions of dollars a year.
But for years, the federal government forced farmers to get federal permission before they could kill resident Canada geese that preyed on their crops. The trouble is, it took weeks or sometimes months to get permission. Often, the geese had picked crops clean by then and moved on to greener pastures.
So it was a relief in 2007 when the federal government said farmers in many of the lower 48 states would no longer have to get federal permission before killing the birds. But there was a catch, as there often is when federal bureaucracy is involved.
“Before farmers can kill geese, they still must document their efforts to scare them away,” The Associated Press reported. Those efforts range from barking dogs to fireworks.
But biologists say the birds get used to those tactics and ignore them. Farmers have experienced that futility firsthand.
“Try to scare them and all they do is fly to another field,” Kevin Engle, a Virginia farmer who has used a shotgun and a fake eagle to keep geese at bay, told the AP. Of course, by the time farmers “document” the steps they took to scare the geese, the geese can still do lots of damage.
That’s “for the birds,” but that’s your federal government at work.