Foster City seeks nonlethal plans to control geese

At its Aug. 7 meeting, the council amended its contract with Wildlife Innovations Inc., which is producing the management strategy plan to specify nonlethal options, with the revised contract expected to cost $196,657. The current contract costs $55,960. Foster City’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services permit to cull around 100 Canada Geese expired at the end of July, with staff not recommending renewing the permit to allow culling due to timing constraints and administrative burden, according to a staff report.

“We felt pulling culling from the table was the best thing at this time,” Councilmember Stacey Jimenez said.

Instead, the city will look at nonlethal strategies in its plan to allow adequate time to assess effectiveness and the best way to ensure success, according to a staff report. The plan will set a framework for managing the geese population and what techniques to use, with the environmental review set to be completed in six months and then brought to the council for consideration. Jimenez said any final decisions and options by the council depend on the full report. Jimenez said Wildlife Innovations told the council there were several other ways to address the problem beyond lethal methods like birth control, habitat modification, picking up feces and installing cameras in areas where the geese congregate to understand how many there are and why they appear in those areas.

“I’m looking forward to having a plan in place to hopefully make inroads,” Jimenez said.

The potential option of using lethal methods has galvanized sections of the community and animal activists for more than a year to fight against killing any geese, arguing it was inhumane and ineffective for the larger problem. A protest was held last year to demand council reconsideration, with large amounts of public comment during council discussions. At the August meeting, public speaker Susan Lessin applauded the council for taking the killing of the geese off the table and trying to find a more humane option. She believes the issue should focus on population management, water quality and cleaning up the feces.

“It was never a very good idea, and it was not going to be helpful in fixing our problem,” she said.

The city has expressed concern about the growing goose population due to health and environmental concerns. City water quality updates for Gull and Marlin parks have found the primary source of bacteria was wildlife like geese and seagulls. The council has argued the situation constitutes a public health hazard, degraded water quality in lagoons and issues with the city’s parks and sports fields. In June of 2022, the goose population in Foster City was 379, with the population in 2020 at 181.