Washington, D.C. has a problem, and national park officials are looking to border collies for the solution. Canada geese are doing more settling in than migrating on the National Mall lately, and the waterfowl are depositing roughly three pounds of droppings in the popular tourist area each day. The dogs would scare off the geese and keep them away.
“There’s times of the year, when you walk over the Washington Monument grounds, there’s not a place for you to put down a picnic blanket without feeling disgusting,” Michael Stachowicz, a National Park Service turf management specialist, told Marketplace.
Stachowicz used to work for golf courses, and that’s where he first witnessed how effective border collies are for humane goose population control. “They go in this crouch,” Stachowicz explains, “it’s really amazing to watch these border collies transform from a great dog into something that looks really predatory and wolf-like.”
The government has asked for bids for companies that use dogs (with handlers) to tackle overpopulation of geese. Border collies don’t attack; they’re perfectly happy scaring them off. The National Park Service told Marketplace that they expect the border collies to be a permanent fixture on the National Mall.
As Matt Soniak reported for Next City in “12 Ways Cities Change Animals and Animals Change Cities,” there’s a dynamic relationship at work when it comes to city-dwellers and four-legged creatures. The dogs aren’t the only animals helping out with urban maintenance. In recent years, municipalities such as Pittsburgh have turned to goat herders for lawn-tending, and llamas and goats “mow” the grass at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
Jenn Stanley is a freelance journalist, essayist and independent producer living in Chicago. She has an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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