HOA votes to euthanize hundreds of federally protected geese in neighborhood

MADISON, Ala. (WAFF/Gray News) - An Alabama homeowners’ association board voted this week to euthanize hundreds of geese living in an Edgewater neighborhood.

The Edgewater HOA board approved a mass bird kill Monday night. However, residents are calling for alternative solutions.

According to Brian Goodwin, board president, Canada geese currently live in the neighborhood at Lady Ann Lake, but the growing population has negatively impacted the area.

Goodwin noted that the lake’s quality has deteriorated with the birds affecting public health, the walking trails and resident safety in the community.

Edgewater resident Natalie Tidwell said she has not experienced such problems.

“I’ve never had any issues with hostility or aggression. We personally never got sick as kids rolling around in the dirt,” Tidwell said. “I can’t say that it’s a problem that warrants lethal measures; that’s for sure.”

Canada geese are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The birds can be legally caught and killed with a permit from the United States Department of Agriculture.

Board member Jack Hollum said the USDA subcontracts an exterminator to cull the geese. Neighborhoods near the Huntsville International Airport are eligible for permits due to concerns over bird strikes.

The Edgewater HOA said it received a permit to kill its geese in 2020. According to a USDA official, the board has not filed any paperwork yet to receive another permit.

Hollum was one of two board members who voted against Monday’s action. He said it only took two weeks for another flock to repopulate the area after the 2020 kill.

He and other residents have volunteered to clean what the geese leave behind to avoid them being killed. Hollum already uses a scraping device to clean the poop off twice a day.

“It took me 10 minutes to hit this entire causeway before I went to work,” he said. “It’s a no-brainer. It takes so little time; it’s not even funny.”

The board president said this type of cleaning is one of the non-lethal measures the HOA has already tried, but Hollum said he and some volunteers are the only ones who have actively done it.

Some residents have even offered to buy equipment worth thousands of dollars to help.

But the board has not changed its decision from Monday.

“At least just postpone the decision so that we could actually prove the efficacy of our measures, so that they were really working,” another resident, Pamela Webb, said. “It was a bit frustrating to not have those thoughts considered.”

Residents who oppose the cull hope to gather signatures from 165 households (25 percent of the neighborhood) for a petition against the mass killing.

“You can’t come in and repeatedly cull out the geese,” Webb said. “We have an obligation to do something, and that’s really where I would like to encourage our board to get more conservation actions going forward.”

The board president said the HOA wants to find a long-term solution to controlling the population.