Since the middle of June, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control (ADC) have been capturing Canada geese throughout the state and shipping them to slaughterhouses. Last summer, approximately 2,000 Canada geese were killed and the meat was donated to food banks around the state.
At least 400 of the geese killed had been at the Upper Occoquan Sewage Facility in Fairfax County, Virginia. In spite of this possible contamination, the meat from these geese was also donated to food banks.
The geese are captured during the summer because they are molting and cannot fly away. These cruel round-ups are completely unnecessary and ineffective, as neighboring geese will soon fill the vacancies left by captured geese. Long-term and humane solutions include the use of exclusion and repellent devices, hazing techniques using dogs and noisemakers, and, where the population needs immediate reduction, "egg addling" methods that render the goose eggs inviable.
Please contact the following people and make your views known. We must make sure this is prevented from happening again next June.
Please also call Senator John Warner at (202) 224-2023, Senator Charles Robb at (202) 224-4024, and your Member of Congress. Tell them that as a resident of Virginia, you are outraged at such inhumane methods of goose control. Please point out that ADC is a federally-funded program and that this is an obscene waste of taxpayer money. Request that they support the elimination of funding to ADC.
Click here for more information and for a petition that Virginia residents may sign to protest the slaughter of Canada geese.
Thank you for your help!