2022 Memorial Day Issue

April Simnor
keeps an eye on
a pair of Canada
geese as she
checks the eggs
from their nest.
Simnor shares the water with a male
Canada goose.
Homeowners at
Lakeshore Village
install fencing along
the boat launch.
Jamie Brunn and Tena Bos install
fencing at Lakeshore Village.
Solving This Issue Can Be
A Wild Goose Chase
They are harassed, their nesting areas
targeted, their eggs addled. Humans
plant taller grass near favored lakes and
streams to deter them or add chemicals or
rough surfaces around water bodies that make
walking to lakes and streams uncomfortable.
Feeding them on public property is illegal
in the four Lake Hopatcong towns—Mount
Arlington banned feeding them on public and
private property.
But Canada geese never seem to go away.
Not for lack of trying.
This year the Lake Hopatcong Commission
will jump into the fray to make the watershed
uncomfortable for the Canada goose, a large
(average weight 12 to 14 pounds, with a 4- to
6-foot wingspan), protective, aggressive and
omnipresent bird.
The birds are both an important member of
the Lake Hopatcong wildlife community and
an identified nuisance whose feces foul parks,
playing fields and beaches and add to the
collective pollution that plagues the lake.
Wildlife professionals have identified
two groups of Canada geese in New Jersey:
Migratory birds that move between breeding
grounds in Canada and overwintering areas
in the United States, and a resident group that
has grown since the 1930s, when they were first
released.
A 2012 Rutgers University Cooperative
Service study noted there were 80,000 native
6
Story by MICHAEL DAIGLE
Photos by KAREN FUCITO
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Memorial Day 2022
Jersey geese. In 2008, there were an estimated
3.6 million resident geese in the United States.
The study said “The overabundance of
resident Canada geese in the eastern U.S.
has significant negative impacts on both
ecosystem and human health. Intolerable
levels of negative human-goose interactions,
including agricultural damage, habitat
degradation, aircraft strikes and environmental
contamination, make managing resident goose
populations a necessity. A lack of natural
predators and high-quality food resources have
greatly increased survival.”
And, oh, both groups of geese—the migratory
and the resident—are federally protected.
Karen Porfido of Mount Arlington, an
alternate on the Lake Hopatcong Commission,
is heading up that group’s new effort to reduce
goose damage to the lake watershed.
She said the impact of goose feces on Lake
Hopatcong is profound.
“Four adult geese can produce as much
phosphorus as one septic system,” she said.
“One goose produces one half pound of
phosphorus a year, which has the potential to
generate 550 pounds of wet algae.”
For comparison, reports filed by Princeton
Hydro LLC, the lake’s water quality consultant,
say removal (through weed harvesting) of one
pound of phosphorus from the lake can result
in the removal of 1,100 pounds of wet plant
material.
Porfido said the commission this year will
begin with an education program designed to
show the impact of the geese on the lake and
to outline preferred discouragement methods.
One goal is to secure permission from
property owners to allow volunteers next spring
during breeding season to enter properties and
addle eggs.
The goose battle is not new nor confined to
Lake Hopatcong.
At Lake Shawnee, Jefferson Mayor Eric
Wilsusen, who is also president of the private
Lake Shawnee Club, said, “We have tried
everything.”
That included egg addling, pyrotechnics
and other noisemakers to startle the geese,
planting tall grass near the shore and chemical
treatments.
“It’s important to addle the eggs,” he said. “At
times we had to close beaches because of the
mess.”
The 83-acre lake is home to 2,559 residents
whose activities rely on access to clean beaches
and a clean lake.
The lake averages 12 to 15 pairs of geese,
Wilsusen said, but has been home to as many
as 25 pairs.
“We have to find a balance that protects the
geese and keeps the lake clean,” he said.
There’s also this: “We are the headwaters for
Lake Hopatcong,” Wilsusen said. “What we do
in Shawnee has an impact in Lake Hopatcong.”
The Lake Mohawk Country Club, a private
lake community in Sparta and Byram, extends
its mitigation efforts to all waterfowl, said
engineer Sabina Watson.
The program includes the usual efforts: Egg
addling, no feeding of birds and other wildlife,
habitat disruption and eradication.
The community of 9,916 people on the 800-
acre lake shares the space with about 30 pairs of
geese, Watson said. The aggressive mitigation
has meant “we have not seen an increase in the
population of geese,” Watson said.
Netcong partners with the Lake
Musconetcong Regional Planning Board and