“Gooseberry Goose… is out on the loose, / Raiding the gooseberry garden. / Gooseberry Goose… I’ll tie to a spruce, / Till he comes begging my pardon.” … ditty from a beginner’s piano book, 1963.
The same time I should have been practicing “Gooseberry Goose,” in nearby Rochester, Minnesota, wildlife experts discovered a flock of larger-than-usual geese out on the loose, fowl that easily exceeded the size of standard Canada geese (Branta Canadensis). I’ll let U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service explain via their press release issued 60 years ago, April, 1963 (lightly edited):
“The world’s largest wild goose, the giant Canada, which for over thirty years was thought to be extinct, has been rediscovered in Minnesota, according to the Department of the Interior. Huge geese, reported to range from 15 to 19 pounds (compared to 11 pounds or less for other Canada geese) were found by Dr. Harold Hanson of the Illinois Natural History Survey. This flock of giant geese has been roosting on Silver Lake in Rochester, Minnesota. The lake is kept partly open by warm water discharge from an electric generating plant. … Dr. Hanson discovered the giant goose is not only still around, they (appear to be) adapting to man’s changes of its environment.”
Hooray for giant geese! Once common throughout the Midwest, overhunting, habitat loss, and egg gathering ALMOST eliminated this subspecie early in the twentieth century. From this Rochester remnant, however, giant Canada geese (Branta canadensis maxima) recovered extraordinarily well, now spreading their considerable wingspan across the region. Waterfowl hunters love them; 75 percent of the Canada geese taken by Mississippi Flyway hunters are giant Canada geese.
Quick story from Rochester six decades ago. Local geese were so large researchers first thought their scales were faulty. To verify their accuracy, an assistant was dispatched to the grocery store to purchase five- and ten-pound bags of sugar and flour for re-weighing, ultimately validating their scale readings.
So, what brought big birds to this location? Thousands of years before Europeans (or healthcare patients) arrived, the Rochester area was a blend of spring-fed streams flowing year-round and extensive prairies… ideal goose wintering grounds before immigrants dispersed them. Then, a century ago, in 1924, Dr. Charles Mayo, Sr., a founder of the Mayo Clinic – indeed, much in Rochester has a Mayo connection – purchased fifteen giant Canada geese for his 3,000-acre game refuge on the outskirts of town. These “domestics” decoyed migrating geese, which generally migrated farther south, but started wintering over, all well fed on the Mayo property.
In the mid-1930s, Rochester established a nesting flock of Canada geese at Silver Lake, a man-made, WPA project on the Zumbro River just north of downtown. In 1939, Dr. Mayo’s death halted the feeding program on his property, prompting geese wintering there to seek other quarters, some moving to Silver Lake. Additionally, in 1948, a new power plant on Silver Lake started discharging heated water into the lake, which kept it from freezing, luring more geese to stay throughout the year.
Today, there are approximately four million giant Canada geese in North America, including 1.7 million within the Mississippi Flyway. At its peak, in 2005, there were 40,000 geese on Silver Lake alone (the 2023 figure for all of Rochester is about 6,000). Yes, geese also thrive in places that don’t really want them, at least not too many of them. Their sheer numbers, occasional aggressiveness, noisy tendencies, and sizable fecal deposits, (two-to-three pounds daily per goose) can make these honkers a vexatious nuisance. In response, Rochester, Des Moines, and many other communities have implemented comprehensive goose management plans.
As for me, I’m haunted by native Iowan Aldo Leopold's query: "What if there be no goose music?" (https://blog.nwf.org/2011/06/what-if-there-be-no-goose-music/) We once came perilously close to losing these impressive birds. Surely, we can coexist with them in a reasonable fashion… so future generations can encounter goose songs in nature rather than merely on a keyboard.
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Kurt, this is pure delight. Thank you!