lone goose

A goose hangs out along the bank of Crystal Lake in the park in Urbana on Monday, June 22, 2020.

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In a statement provided by Penny Hanna, the Friends of the Geese said the group had planned to take the park district to court to stop the harvest, but were unable to because they didn’t know when the harvest would happen.

They “secretly carried out a permit to cull the Geese,” the statement said.

The group had also identified a wildlife refuge in southern illinois to send the geese to, but park district officials said the IDNR does not allow geese to be relocated.

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URBANA — After weeks of protests, the Urbana Park District held its “charity harvest” Monday, collecting 175 geese to be killed at a poultry processor and releasing about 35 back to Crystal Lake Park.

The park district received its permit from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Saturday, and the IDNR and U.S. Department of Agriculture managed the geese collection Monday.

“It went very smoothly,” said Tim Bartlett, executive director of the park district. “There were staff on the banks that helped gather the geese and a couple kayaks in the lake that encouraged them up the banks toward Cannonball Hill.”

The geese were loaded into transport crates, which were put on vehicles with trailers and loaded from the park, Bartlett said. From there, they were taken to a poultry processing plant, and the meat will be donated to a food bank.

The park district had hoped to bring the goose population to a more manageable level, down from counts in recent years that ranged from 79 to 118. So having 210 collected “surprised us a little. It was more than we anticipated were in there,” Bartlett said.

The park district’s permit only allowed up to 175 geese to be killed.

Now that the population is down to about 35, Bartlett said the usual geese management techniques will continue, such as dog controls, lasers and oiling nests.

The park district is also in the middle of a multimillion-dollar project to improve Crystal Lake Park, including planting taller natural grasses that are less attractive to geese.

Since the Urbana Park District board unanimously approved the charity harvest in May, a group calling itself Friends of the Geese has protested in front of the park twice a week.

Bartlett said there were also “a lot of Urbana residents were supportive as well. We heard from people who were just fed up and said they’re not coming back until it improved.”

And he said the park district hopes to create a “community discussion” about how to manage the geese.

“I see it as a national issue,” Bartlett said. “In talking with virtually every park district director, they all have geese stories. Ideally if we could create even a statewide approach to management it would help relieve cities of having to deal with it individually.”

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