HOBOKEN (WABC) — People in Hoboken, New Jersey, want to protect their parks from the growing goose population, which is leading to serious health concerns over the mess they leave behind.
A goose-chaser company is being paid to visit parks in Hoboken with dogs to disperse the flocks of birds and help reduce the overwhelming droppings in the parks.
“So far it’s been a lot better than last year. The kids can run around. It was bad last year. Poop everywhere. Everywhere,” one Hoboken resident said.
The city contracts two companies to make regular dog runs to shoo the geese.
“It’s not a new issue. We’ve always just worked on controlling the goose population. We do have two vendors working on our waterfront parks to help with the geese control and we have an annual contract that the city issues,” Assistant Business Administrator Diana Fortunato said.
What’s not helping is people feeding the geese.
The city says that defeats the purpose of everything it’s trying to do to keep the parks clean.
“We ask visitors not to feed the geese because it makes them want to find a food source from the public rather than nature. So please do not feed the geese and keep your distance when they’re nesting because they can become a little aggressive,” Fortunato said.
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