[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 1/15/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

January 15, 2008

 

3. Watersheds

 

CANADA GEESE:

State officials look into cutting Canada goose populations - Stockton Record

 

DELTA SALMON NUMBERS:

Biologists: Salmon numbers reduced - Stockton Record

 

 

CANADA GEESE:

State officials look into cutting Canada goose populations

Stockton Record – 1/15/08

By Dana Nichols, staff writer

 

STOCKTON - In 1916, the leaders of the United States and Great Britain were worried enough about hunting-caused declines in Canada geese that they included them in an international treaty protecting migratory birds.

 

More than 90 years later, Canada geese are plentiful pests.

 

They are America's most common waterfowl, and an estimated 3.5 million have given up migration, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Instead, they're grazing year-round on the wide lawns of golf courses, parks and sometimes farm fields. That's a problem for humans, who don't like to putt around the gooey goose droppings or drink goose-tainted water.

 

On Feb. 8, the California Fish and Game Commission will consider making it easier for land managers and property owners to reduce goose populations by destroying eggs or even killing adults in some cases.

 

"We have been waiting for this legislation to come for a couple of years," said Jerry Olson, manager of the Brookside Country Club golf course in Stockton. "We have been working with the (California) Fish and Game Department trying to eradicate our geese. Their hands are so tied we've had almost no effect."

 

Olson estimated the golf course is home to 50 or 60 geese who stay year-round, and the population is growing. He said existing laws only allow a few geese to be eradicated each year in each county in California. So he's only been able to eliminate a dozen or so, a number easily replaced the following year by new goslings.

 

Elsewhere in the region, Lodi Lake has been closed to swimmers at times because of high bacteria counts related to resident Canada geese. Lodi in 2006 imposed a ban on feeding the geese in hopes of stabilizing the population.

 

"People have been asked not to encourage the geese," said Lodi spokesman Jeff Hood. Hood said Lodi officials are unlikely to take more drastic measures, such as addling eggs, to prevent hatching.

 

The egg addling - done either by putting oil on the surface of the egg or by shaking the egg to destroy the embryo - is the goose-control measure most property managers are likely to use under the proposed new regulation, said Dan Yparraguirre, a wildlife biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game.

 

Simply removing eggs does not work because the adult geese who return to an empty nest will often be stimulated to lay more eggs, Yparraguirre said.

 

The growing urban goose populations fouling city parks from Lake Merritt in Oakland to Central Park in New York City prompted federal authorities to rethink their rules.

 

In 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made it easier for property owners to take action. California law, however, bars destroying eggs or nests.

 

The state measure, if approved, could go into effect as soon as March 1 and would allow land managers in coastal, largely urban counties to simply complete a federal form online before destroying eggs. Land managers in inland counties including San Joaquin and Calaveras would have to get California Department of Fish and Game approval.

 

Yparraguirre said that is because inland counties also are host to goose hunting, and the agency wants to make sure eradication efforts won't damage populations used for recreational hunting.

 

In cases where state or local public officials deem public health to be at risk, the new regulation will allow state officials to kill adult Canada geese.

 

Animal rights activists have mixed feelings. Although they generally oppose killing geese, many support the expanded use of egg addling because it is an alternative to killing.

 

"We feel that as long as it is done early in the egg's development, that that can be a very humane way to limit flock growth," said Maggie Brasted, director of urban wildlife conflict resolution for the Humane Society of the United States.

 

Kent Lambert, manager of the Mokelumne Watershed and Recreation Division for East Bay Municipal Utility District, said he wanted to use egg addling to control the resident Canada goose population around Camanche Reservoir, which he estimated at 2,500. Instead, he had to use hunters to thin the population, because that was the only legal route open to him when he began the program last fall.

 

"Dealing with the eggs seemed like a more effective method to maintain the controls on the population," Lambert said.

 

Geese, however, can live up to 30 years, Yparraguirre said. That means that even if workers prevent new goslings by finding every egg every year, there will still be crowds of geese on local lawns and beaches for decades.

 

"This is a tough one," he said. "This is hard on everybody. We want to conserve wildlife. Everybody likes Canada geese, I think. But at some point, they are a problem." #

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/A_NEWS/801150319

 

 

DELTA SALMON NUMBERS:

Biologists: Salmon numbers reduced

Stockton Record – 1/15/08

 

One week after officials reported yet another decline in several Delta fish species, biologists say the number of salmon returning to spawn in the San Joaquin River or its tributaries plummeted last year.

 

For the entire river basin, 1,158 adult salmon were counted in 2007, compared with 5,672 fish in 2006, according to the environmental consultant FishBio.

 

Over the past seven years, counts on the Stanislaus River have dropped from 8,498 salmon in 2000 to 405 fish last year.

 

Experts last fall said they were unsure exactly why the numbers were sagging. Since salmon are migratory, spending at least part of their lives in the ocean, San Francisco Bay, the Delta and upstream rivers, there are many potential causes. #

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/A_NEWS/80115002

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