Crystal Lake Park is undergoing a major restoration this year, and the Urbana Park District is ready to tackle one of the obstacles to the improvements: the Canada goose population.
We see them all over town, and the park is home to about 80 geese at last count. From their website:
Each goose deposits over 1 pound of feces per day, leading to public and employee health concerns, unpleasant and slippery pathways, and poor water quality. Shoreline habitats around the lake, and turf grass within the park, have been grazed and degraded leading to erosion and poor turf quality for visitors to the park. Lastly, the increased goose population has lead to neighbor concerns and traffic issues in the park and along Park Street, Broadway Avenue, and even University Avenue.
After years of unsuccessful mitigation efforts, the park district is considering a Charity Harvest program, where some of the geese would be collected and sent to a poultry processing facility to be processed as meat for food banks. You can read more about that here. They are asking for community input about this possible solution via a survey, which you can complete here. The survey will be open through May 7th at 5 p.m.
Photo by Patrick Singer.