Attempts to remove many of Pennsylvania's stay-at-home non-migratory Canada geese have shifted into high gear, perhaps partially due to the famous crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River.

The forced landing into the drink in January 2009 made a hero of its pilot. But the incident focused less favorable attention on non-migratory, or "resident" Canada geese. The jet's engines stopped working shortly after takeoff from New York's La Guardia Airport after several honkers were sucked into the plane's engines.

New York officials have already begun rounding up and killing geese in some city parks.

Now, the Federal Aviation Administration is pressuring airports with any airline service to do comprehensive wildlife hazard assessments.

To comply, Lancaster Airport recently hired consultants to determine if there are resident Canada geese, deer or other critters living within 5 miles of the airport that could potentially collide with local planes.

There are, says David Eberly, airport manager, though he does not foresee any danger.

A number of farm ponds harboring Canada geese are within 5 miles. It's unclear at this point if the airport authority would have to drive off or kill Canada geese on those private properties.

The airport, in fact, has already taken steps to discourage the presence of geese, such as keeping the grass high around runways. Canada geese favor close-cropped grass — hence their affinity for golf courses and parks — so they can keep an eye out for predators.

Eberly says no plane taking off or landing at the airport has ever struck geese to his knowledge. Eberly has been at the airport for 33 years.

Occasionally, small birds are found on runways and are assumed to have been killed by planes, Eberly said.

However, gulls and crows have had to be driven off in the past. Killing some and displaying them as warning effigies has worked well, says Eberly, who did the lethal deterrence at the advice of Wildlife Services, a federal agency devoted to removing wildlife conflicts.

But the airport shake-down is only the tip of the iceberg in growing efforts to trim resident geese that have become unwanted guests in Pennsylvania and other Atlantic states.

Resident geese populations exploded in the 1980s and 1990s in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Crop damage, health concerns from geese defecation, aggressive geese around nests and just generally being considered a nuisance in large numbers convinced wildlife officials to act.

The New York Times reported in July of a new secret plan that has a goal of nearly halving non-migratory Canada geese numbers in 17 Atlantic states — from 1.1 million to 650,000.

There is no secret plan because state and federal wildlife agencies have been in coordinated efforts to try to drastically reduce resident geese numbers for years, responds John Dunn, chief of the game management division of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

In Pennsylvania for example, hunters are allowed to hunt resident geese the maximum number of days with maximum limits allowed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Last year, hunters killed 162,000 Canada geese in Pennsylvania. An estimated 82 percent were resident geese.

After 10 years of intense efforts to trim resident geese, Dunn reports the population has been at least stabilized.

The estimated population in the state has fallen from 338,000 in 2004 to the current 232,000. But the goal is for no more than 150,000 statewide.

"It's been harder to trim than stabilize," says Dunn.

With hunting opportunities maxed out, further reductions are falling on the shoulders of private landowners and Wildlife Services, the federal government's longtime nuisance wildlife troubleshooter.

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So, if they hardly fly, how did all these non-migrating geese get here in the first place?

By the early 1900s, before hunting limits and protection of migrating waterfowl, Canada geese that migrated up and down the Atlantic Coast had been over-hunted.

Geese were brought here from other states to pump up the population. The Pennsylvania Game Commission participated in these restoration efforts.

They released a subspecies of large Canada geese from Minnesota and Wisconsin. These "giant" geese didn't migrate far from their native homes and didn't fly far when they were released in Pennsylvania. Most of today's resident geese are descended from these geese homebodies.

In addition, when the use of live geese as decoys was outlawed by the federal government in the 1930s, sportsmen's clubs in Pennsylvania and Maryland released their pens of live geese. These geese, descended from migratory geese, had lost the instinct to migrate also.

Over the years, these highly adaptable geese found the 'burbs to their liking with close-cropped grass, park ponds, handouts from humans and places often off-limits to hunting.

Resident Canada geese are now found in every county in Pennsylvania. Southeastern and northwestern parts of the state are the biggest strongholds.

Ironically, at the same time resident geese were flourishing, the wild migratory Canada geese were plummeting because of poor nesting success in Arctic breeding grounds, where out-of-control snow geese were destroying habitat.

In 1995, hunting was discontinued for four years on migrant Canadas in Pennsylvania and other eastern states.

The population of migratory Canada geese in the Atlantic Flyway has risen slowly since then, from 29,000 breeding pairs to 170,000 breeding pairs last year.

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With hunting as a tool at maximum use, and further reductions in resident geese populations mandated, landowners are being encouraged to stem the tide.

A few years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave private and public landowners permission to destroy Canada goose nests and treat eggs without a permit &tstr; though registration is required.

Increasingly, Wildlife Services, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is called in by landowners and municipal officials to drive away nuisance resident geese.

The demand has pumped up Wildlife Services' presence in Pennsylvania from one shared office with New Jersey and eight field officers 10 years ago to eight offices in Pennsylvania alone with a staff of 26.

The Lancaster Sertoma Club paid Wildlife Services $15,000 to $20,000 in 2006-2009 to get rid of an overpopulation of resident geese at Long's Park.

Both lethal and nonlethal means were used and the problem has gotten better, if not eliminated, says Joe Legenstein of the Sertoma Club.

Legenstein says he knows of local golf courses and businesses that have contracted with the agency to control geese.

Currently, Wildlife Services has five projects under way in Lancaster County, says Jason Wood, district supervisor of the Pennsylvania office.

Wood says he can't reveal customers without their permission, but said the anti-geese work involves parks, businesses, a medical center and a retirement home.

Contrary to what some believe, Wildlife Services' aim is not to wipe out wildlife, Wood says.

"Our goal is never to eradicate a particular species but to bring the damage incurred by these species to an acceptable level.

"Especially with Canada geese, we stress nonlethal measures as much as possible," Wood says.

"They are a valuable resource and a lot of people appreciate seeing them. You have to consider the value of animals to the public as well."

In fact, geese aren't allowed to be killed without first trying harassment techniques, stopping human feeding, trying to allow hunting and trying to destroy nests and eggs.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission requires two years of nonlethal means before geese can be killed.

When geese are rounded up and euthanized, the meat is donated to local food banks. Last year, Wildlife Services gave 900 pounds of geese fillets to charities in Pennsylvania.

"Canada geese are here to stay," says Wood. "We need to live with them but we can manage them and not use an atom bomb-type approach."

acrable@lnpnews.com