The Untouchable, Trespassing, Messy Geese on our Fields

Alexia Louzado - Whether you’re looking at them from the computer lab windows, walking by them, or chasing after them, I’m sure many of you Sutton High kids have noticed that there are unique birds that beautifully litter our fields in front of the school. When I say they “beautifully litter”, I mean these beautiful creatures aren’t being welcomed by Sutton High School, and we have our reasons. These birds, to be more specific, Canadian Geese, aren’t common here in Sutton, Massachusetts. Actually, they haven’t been here before as often as other birds, so it’s a surprise that they showed up to take charge of our football and soccer field. The unique part about these geese though compared to the other birds on our fields, is that since the Canadian geese don’t belong here, there are poaching laws that prohibit us from touching or moving them. They’re unique but they’re also causing a problem as their feces is plentiful on the grass. These geese are angering coaches, players, and just the Suttonians in general. I wanted to learn more about these new visitors so I went to the people who are most involved with them. First, I stopped by our Environmental Science teacher, Ms. O’Neil, who actually let me know about these special geese in the first place. I asked if the geese have been at the school before and Ms. O’Neil said she never noticed them before this year. “What makes them different from other geese is their feces is bigger and very obvious. They could stay the full year, they don’t necessarily migrate. They feed and nest on the ground, whereas other birds spend more time in the trees, which means these Canadian geese are definitely more involved with us on ground.” She gave a quick fun fact that there’s about 5 million Canadian geese in North America. “I don’t know what the school is going to do about them but the best way that scientifically works to move them is by playing a recording of the geese’s natural call for danger. They would leave and never come back.” Moving on from the science of these birds, I went to the athletic side because they are affecting the sports teams the most. Ms. Tuomala, our spanish teacher and Athletic sports director of Sutton High briefed me up on the topic. “I don’t want to disturb them. The most I have interacted with them is walking towards them to disperse them so they’re not using our fields as a restroom. It becomes an unsanitary space when our athletes are falling into feces. We’ve always had problems with geese though which is unfortunate. It’s especially hitting us now with the recent week of rain around homecoming. There’s no mowing the wet grass so grass grows, growing with feces in between.” The feces dropping creatures is interrupting field hockey, football, and soccer unfortunately. When I brought it up with the Officer McGee, he immediately knew what geese I was talking about. They have definitely left a mark on the officer. “All I know is that they’re all over the place and they poop everywhere.” I asked him how involved he is as a police officer in this messy situation and he stated, “It’s Mother Nature, there’s nothing much I can do. There could be a whole number of reasons why they’re here but whatever that may be we gotta share the land with these creatures. They have every right to occupy the same space we do. It’s not hunting season and on top of that, you can hunt on the school’s grounds anyways so they are a protected species in that aspect. I don’t know a lot about laws, I’m not sure about if they’re a protected species in general but we’ve been advised not to touch them.” I decided to move further along with sharing the land comment that Officer McGee said, and went directly to the man that really does share the land with the geese the most. Mr. Kennedy, our high school gym teacher and football coach, was glad to let me know about him, his classes’, and team’s experience with these birds. “They messed the whole field up with their poop. It’s tough when you get tackled in poop.” I asked him what he can and can’t do and he responded with, “When we’re there they’re gone, they move fields when we take over the football field after school. They move over to the soccer field. They’re a distraction for the kids as well. They’re vicious animals and they will attack if threatened. Kids are running at them and it’s a safety issue and a distraction.” The school hasn’t been very involved with these geese and regulations, but are still fighting with the clean up after the geese leave momentarily during practices.