Michigan DNR offers hope for an end to non-migratory Canada goose killing

Pressure from In Defense of Animals & United Poultry Concerns contributes to policy change

LANSING,  Michigan––Michigan Department of Natural Resources director Scott Bowen on May 9,  2025 “paused” scheduled massacres of “nuisance” non-migratory Canada geese,  in favor of “alternative options for managing human-goose conflicts and health and safety concerns.”

Possible translation:  the Michigan Department of Natural Resources may have finally figured out,  ahead of most wildlife agencies,  that neither killing nor relocating non-migratory Canada geese lastingly resolves goose issues.

National implications

The Bowen decree has indirect national implications.  Almost every U.S. state has reported issues with “nuisance” non-migratory Canada geese.

What Michigan does,  moreover,  will likely be emulated––especially if successful.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources,  begun when a state game warden was hired in 1887,  formally made a state department in 1921,  is among the oldest,  largest,  and most influential wildlife agencies in the U.S.

Michigan wildlife management policies thereby often become the default policies for many other states,  and frequently become federal policy as well.

In lieu of killing problematic non-migratory Canada geese,  the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in recent years has relocated as many as 10,000 geese per year,  staff waterfowl expert Kaitlyn Barnes told media.

Migratory vs. non-migratory

This was in keeping with long-standing Michigan state policy of maintaining large populations of “game” species,  including Canada geese,  both migratory and non-migratory,  to encourage hunting license sales.

The difference between migratory and non-migratory Canada geese is that the migratory variety are as nature made them,  fly high,  fly mostly at night,  and are relatively hard to hit with shotgun pellets.  Non-migratory Canada geese look almost identical to the migratory variety,  but decades ago were hybridized with domestic geese to produce bigger,  fatter,  heavier,  slower and lower-flying birds who almost could be hunted with a bean shooter.

Preferred habitat

The preferred habitat of non-migratory Canada geese,  however,  is mowed suburban grass lawns,  parks,  ballfields and golf courses,  where any discharge of firearms more deadly than bean shooters is illegal.

USDA Wildlife Services over the past decade has pursued a Canada goose policy parallel to that of the Michigan Department of Natural resourdes,  killing between 21,000 and 27,000 non-migratory Canada geese per year,  mostly near airports,  while “dispersing” between 590,000 and 1.2 million.

“Dispersed” geese include those who flee shotgun blasts,  those who flee any humans with guns,  and those who are relocated by whatever means.

Dispersing and relocating non-migratory Canada geese seemed to work more effectively than just trying to kill them––for a while.

H5N1 brought “kill” policy

Then the H5N1 avian influenza hit,  incubated mainly among migratory waterfowl,  transmitted into domestic bird flocks,  mainly chickens,  with non-migratory Canada geese among the major vectors.

More than 166 million domestic chickens have been killed to try to stamp out H5N1 outbreaks,  sending the price of hens’ eggs soaring and making egg prices a volatile national political issue.

With the 2024 national election looming,  the Michigan Natural Resources Commission,  appointed by Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer,  a Democrat,  on October 10,  2024 voted unanimously to kill all Canada geese removed from Michigan lakes in 2025,  out of concern that they might contribute to spreading H5N1 and other high pathogenic avian flu strains.

But the “kill” policy proved unpopular,  and somewhat self-contradictory,  as well,  if the ultimate concern was preventing human exposure to H5N1,  which is potentially lethal to humans as well as birds.

“Disproportionate,  inhumane response”

Recounted Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger, “The pilot proposal passed by the commission allowed for the ‘roundup of Canada geese and their goslings and lethally gassing them inside portable gas chambers.’”

The idea,  summarized Mary Walrath-Holdridge for USA Today,  citing the Canada Goose Program as described on the Michigan DNR website, included as an “end goal” to allow entities having geese killed “to pay to have meat from the geese processed,  tested,   and donated” to food banks and soup kitchens,  “but in the meantime,”  Walrath-Holdridge said,  “the corpses would go to landfills.”

Democratic legislators including Michigan Senate Natural Resources & Agriculture Committee members Dayna Polehanki and Sue Shink,  expressed their disapproval on April 22,  2025.

Polehanki,  Shink,  and colleagues called the gassing a “disproportionate,  inhumane response,”  Mauger summarized,  “to nuisance complaints that were ‘mainly about goose droppings’ at places like parks,  businesses,  condominium complexes,  subdivisions,  golf courses and lake associations.’”

“10,000 or more Canada geese & their goslings”

Objected Polehanki,  Shink,  et al,  “If allowed to proceed,  the Department of Natural Resources,  with Natural Resources Commission authorization,  will annually round up potentially 10,000 or more Canada geese and their goslings in their natural habitat during their summer molt (June and July) when they are flightless.”

The killing policy,  Polehanki,  Shink,  et al continued,  “violates the very principles of ethical wildlife stewardship that should guide wildlife management in our state and devalues life in our shared ecosystems.

“The mission of the Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Division is to ‘enhance, restore, and conserve the state’s wildlife resources,  natural communities,  and ecosystems for the benefit of current and future generations.

“Disregard for the voices of Michiganders”

“That mission cannot coexist with a policy that relies on inhumane killing,  nor can it coexist with a disregard for the voices of Michiganders  who oppose the gassing of geese due to nuisance complaints,”  Polehanki,  Shink,  et al concluded.

Observed Mauger,  “Bowen’s response letter,”  pausing the killing,  “came a week before the May 16,  2025 deadline for people to apply for permits to transport,  capture,  hold , and euthanize Canada geese,”  who “can be captured only during the summer flightless period of approximately June 1 through July 1,  according the website of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Wrote Bowen,  “After further consideration with our wildlife staff,  we have decided to pause the program for this year and will not be issuing any permits or conducting this work on any sites.

“We will continue to encourage and prioritize non-lethal techniques”

“We will continue to encourage and prioritize non-lethal techniques for landowners,”  Bowen promised,  “including habitat modification,  elimination of feeding,  scare tactics,  repellents,  and nest/egg destruction.  It is important for the health and safety of our citizens and the management of our natural resources,”  Bowen said,  “that we continue to use the goose management tools at our disposal.”

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources estimates the current state Canada goose population at more than 300,000,  counting both migratory and non-migratory flocks.

“State wildlife managers seek to keep the bird’s population in Michigan in the 175,000 to 225,000 range and regulate that number through annual hunts,”  noted Detroit Free Press reporter Jalen Williams.

Manufactured overpopulation

A letter-and-email campaign orchestrated by the national advocacy organizations In Defense of Animals and United Poultry Concerns emphasized that if Michigan has an overpopulation of non-migratory Canada geese,  it was manufactured by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources itself.

“The Department of Natural Resources points the finger of blame at overpopulation,”  said United Poultry Concerns in a March 29,  2025 Facebook posting,  “but readily disregards the mismanagement of the population for the sake of hunting.

“In fact, the Department of Natural Resources actually gave a Partner in Conservation Award to [former Michigan state university wildlife biologist] Joe Wilbur Johnson,”  who died in 2012,  “for not only bringing in trumpeter swan eggs from Alaska,  but also for bringing the resident Canada goose into Michigan for the sole purpose of hunting.”

Mute swans vs. Canada geese

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and USDA Wildlife Services “have slaughtered over 8,500 mute swans in Michigan,”  United Poultry Concerns recounted,   “because they claim they are non-native and are invasive,”  potentially interfering with trumpeter swan and Canada goose nesting, “and yet plan to slaughter thousands of native Canada geese,  who are also federally protected,  whatever that means. The swans should have chased them all off if what the DNR is claiming is true.”

The United Poultry Concerns position is,  however,  somewhat of a garble.

Mute swans and all Canada geese were formerly protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918,  but Congress amended the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 2004 to exclude mute swans and non-migratory Canada geese,  among a long list of other “invasive” species,  from coverage.

Live decoys

Non-migratory giant Canada geese are not only no longer protected since the Migratory Bird Treaty Act amendments of 2004,  but have now been #1 among waterfowl on USDA Wildlife Services’ hit list for more than 20 years,  even though dispersal is officially the Wildlife Services preferred response to non-migratory Canada goose problems.

Unlike migratory Canada geese,  non-migratory Canada geese are descended from wild Canada geese who were live-trapped and penned with domestic geese to produced lookalike hybrids,  widely used as live decoys by Canada goose hunters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

After the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was enforced to prohibit use of live decoys in 1935, confiscated decoy geese were bred and stocked by both the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies from the 1940s into the mid-1990s to create huntable populations in habitat then deemed suitable for waterfowling,  in rural areas close to big cities.

Many and perhaps most of these areas were subsequently swallowed by suburban sprawl,  becoming off limits to hunting.

Humane strategies

“Several communities have successfully implemented humane strategies to manage Canada goose populations,”  offered Animal Politics blogger Ed Boks in a June 28,  2024 installment called “The Canada Goose Conundrum.”

Boks mentioned “egg addling,  which involves coating eggs with oil to prevent them from hatching”;  the use of trained dogs,  such as border collies,  which mimic natural predators;  encouraging geese to relocate to safer, more suitable habitats”;  “planting tall grasses or shrubs along shorelines to obstruct sight lines and create a sense of insecurity for the birds,  as well as reducing the amount of mowed lawn near water bodies”;  and “educating the public about the importance of not feeding geese,”  since “Feeding geese can exacerbate the problem by encouraging them to congregate in large numbers and become dependent on human-provided food,  which is often nutritionally inadequate.”

These methods,  also offered by the late Guy Hodge in the HSUS Pocket Guide To The Humane Control of Wildlife in Cities and Towns,  published in 1991,  and in many more recent wildlife control manuals,  have in common that they are preventive,  but––except for the use of dogs––relatively ineffective in “dispersing” non-migratory Canada geese who have already nested in what they deem to be favorable habitat.

Allow nature to take a natural course

What is effective is allowing nature to take a natural course,  as recognized in a backhanded manner by Kristi Noem,  now United States Secretary of Homeland Security,  but previously a two-term governor of South Dakota.

Among Noem’s first actions in 2019 after winning her first term as governor was introducing a “nest predator bounty program” to boost populations of “huntable” waterfowl,  including Canada geese both migratory and non-migratory.

Funded with half a million dollars per year,  and still in effect,  the bounty program targets raccoons,  coyotes,  striped skunks,  badgers, opossums,  and red fox,  from April 1 through July 1,  with a goal of killing 50,000 “nest predators” per year.

If the Michigan Department of Natural Resources really wants to “continue to use the goose management tools at our disposal” without either massacring non-migratory Canada geese or translocating them,  the simple,  obvious way to do it would be to do exactly the opposite of what Noem did:  cancel the trapping and hunting seasons for raccoons,  coyotes,  skunks,  and foxes.

Raccoons in particular are voracious nest predators of non-migratory Canada geese,  but only if tolerated where they can do the job.

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