Just about anyone visiting the three lakes in Peachtree City has seen plenty of ducks and geese. Feeding them, which has become popular, causes problems such as overpopulation and disease and has led the city to ask that residents cease the practice.
City Clerk Betsy Tyler in the city’s online “Updates” said, “Please don’t feed the geese and ducks – it’s killing them with kindness.”
“Ducks and geese are starting to nest at area ponds and lakes,” Tyler explained. “Residents are reminded that feeding wildlife like ducks and geese is harmful to the birds, can turn them into nuisances causing a variety of problems in the community, which will ultimately lead to them being removed or destroyed.”
Tyler noted the problems that can occur when waterfowl are fed. Those include:
• Feeding popcorn, bread or shelled corn is like feeding a child junk food, since the geese are not receiving a balanced diet. It takes up room in their stomachs so they don’t eat the foods they need. Lack of a balanced diet can even cause deformity in the juvenile birds, hindering their ability to fly.
• Regularly fed ducks and geese will lose their natural fear of humans, which can lead to violent bird-on-human attacks during the nesting season. Most injuries from geese occur when the person is backing away from an attacking gander and trips over a curb, planter, bumper block or steps.
• Overcrowding allows diseases such as botulism and cholera to spread easily, potentially leading to large bird die-offs.
• Overpopulation brings additional problems, such as damage to nearby lawns and vegetation, and pounds of “goose poop” that can accumulate in parks and areas frequented by children.
• Overfeeding can leave food the ducks and geese do not eat, attracting mice, rats, and other wildlife, which then attract predators such as foxes and coyotes, and even alligators for the abundant bird buffet.
• When fed regularly, they don’t migrate and their numbers increase.
• Peachtree City must regularly remove (at taxpayer expense) large flocks of Canada geese from waterways when their populations become too high.
“Enjoy Peachtree City’s duck and goose population from a distance,” said Tyler. “For the health of the animals, our waterways, and our parks, please do not feed any wildlife you encounter.”
For more information, visit www.georgiawildlife.com/node/2098.
