Attacks on the Charles River White Geese

Metroplitan District Comission Attacks

The geese live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on state parkland administered by the Metropolitan District Commission. The MDC has used its knowledge of the geese's habits and habitat to time attacks on them, to drive them from their home by hook or crook. These attacks culminated in the 2001 spring nesting season in the murders and disappearances of mother geese, the orphaning and deaths of their hatchlings, the systematic destruction of their eggs and nests, and the maiming and disappearance of other geese. Bumpy, the flock's leader described below, was killed the night of July 14/15 and his body mutilated.

Annual Migration, Mating and Nesting

The White Geese have a mini-migration within a habitat of several hundred yards of riverfront, between the Hyatt Hotel downriver and Magazine Beach upriver from the BU Bridge. Within this year-round habitat, the geese's lives center on a downriver area adjacent to the bridge itself. For many generations, the geese have gathered here in late winter to stake out nesting spots, to win and defend mates and nests throughout the spring, and to introduce their goslings to the world--and protect them from it.

Habitat

Bounded by the BU Bridge, Memorial Drive, the Conrail tracks over the Charles, and the river itself, this area was relatively inaccessible to humans and overgrown with useful plants. A continuous metal fence, steep grade, and thick cover gave protection, while a hidden grassy meadow with dandelions and other tasty weeds provided food. The thicket of blackberries also gave food and safety from the resident pair of red-tailed hawks. Plants such as lady's thumb and Japanese knotweed served as nesting material. Although the geese also nested in the fringe of riverfront plants from the water treatment plant toward the Hyatt, the goose meadow was the place for a goose to be in the nesting season.

Humans and the Geese

The Metropolitan District Commission knew the geese, as well as their popularity. The sight of the flock within Cambridge city limits, crossing Memorial Drive for fresh grass or preening on the riverbank near the Hyatt, could be startling, the animals fascinating. The geese became a regional attraction. Many people have come regularly for years to feed them there or at Magazine Beach. For years--until the MDC defaced it in 2001--a large MDC traffic sign along Memorial Drive cautioned motorists to "Go Slow Geese Crossing."

Habitat Destruction

Although few of the geese's friends knew where the geese nested, the MDC as steward of this state parkland did know. It knew what was at stake when it signed on to plans, originally drawn by the City of Cambridge, to clear the nesting area, change its grade, and put a walk and stairs through it. What was at stake was a whole community's survival. Habitat destruction like this is a well-known way of controlling or eradicating unwanted plants and animals. Removing food and cover, deliberately to expose the geese to predators (including humans) when they were most vulnerable, was the MDC's conscious policy from 1998 and probably from 1997, when the City of Cambridge first showed plans to develop the White Geese's habitat.

Scare Tactics

In the summer of 1998 the MDC solicited an anti-goose memo from people in Cambridge known to be hostile to the White Geese. The responding memo accused the geese of riverbank erosion, danger to humans and other animals, and general undesirability as a "non-native species." Each of these charges--including the last--was demonstrably false. Killings Proposed The memo also proposed to get rid of the geese completely. If that proved politically impossible, it recommended a flock of "no more than six or eight," and annual "culling" (killing), to keep the number small.