Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Canada Geese

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why Canada geese are secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the new SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Canada geese. Known for being loud. Famous for being biters. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Canada geese are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host Katie Golden. Katie, what is your relationship to or opinion of Canada geese? I like them. I like these gooses. These are good goose. I think that they get a bad reputation for being irritable, aggressive and pooping everywhere. All of that is true. And that's why I love them because they're, they don't take any sass. They're uncontrollable, a force of nature. It's a, it's a humbling reminder that human beings, no matter how hard we try, can never tame mother nature.

I feel like we just get straight into it on most episodes. We don't really go over our biographies or like other things we do. Katie, among many things, makes an amazing Twitter account called at ProBirdWrites, the voice of a bird demanding rights. I'm realizing this bird demands rights very effectively. It is large. All the time. It is sticking up for itself. It's great. Yeah. They're the kind of bird where you realize, hey, yeah, these things are dinosaurs. Because I don't know if you know this, Alex, but birds are technically dinosaurs. They're not even just descended from dinosaurs. They're the last remaining dinosaurs on Earth. It's birds. It was birds the whole time.

It'd be like in Jurassic Park if he opens up this park and it's just a huge bird sanctuary. Jurassic Park if he opens up this park and it's just a huge bird sanctuary. The exact thing I was imagining as you said that was the two little kids in the big kitchen of the visitor center and the raptors are pursuing them, but it's Canada geese. Canada geese.

Yeah. Honk! Yeah, just the scene where it runs into the reflection of the little boy and the shiny kitchen counters and then it goes, Honk! the reflection of the little boy and the shiny kitchen counters. And then it goes, honk. No, but I love these ones. I see them all around.

Like they're really, they're called Canada geese, but I believe they have quite a wide migratory range. They're also invasive in some areas. They are just the tanks of the bird world. When you say you see them all around, does that include Italy? Because it could, from what I read. Yeah, you know what? I'm trying to think if I've seen...

I don't think I have, but that doesn't mean they don't exist here. Yeah, they've been introduced to a lot of parts of Europe. I feel like every American, every Canadian, all of us just have an imprinted billion memories of seeing Canada geese around. When I lived in Boston, I would see them all the time. Gosh, I would see them all the time step in there. You know, they're alarmingly large turds. Birds have something called a cloaca rather than like an anus. Can I say anus? I think so. It's a scientific word. Yeah, let's do it. I'm saying scientifically. Scientifically, birds don't have like an anus and a urethra

that are separate. They have a cloaca and it's the hole that does it all. And usually bird poops are sort of that like runny white, you know, combination liquid solid sort of type deal. Can't geese really pump out some pretty solid large poopies and which I assume has a lot to do with their metabolism and diet? I don't want to step on your goose feathers, though, Alex. Let's talk more about these geese. Yeah, don't step on my goose poop number. And we do have goose poop numbers. We're going to get into it.

I'm excited. When you're living near a lot of Canada geese and there's a lot of poopies around, it's not funny. But in retrospect, it is funny how much the goose poop plagued me when I would try to walk, like have a nice walk poopies around. It's not funny, but in retrospect, it is funny how much the goose poop plagued me when I would try to walk, like have a nice walk along the river, along the Charles, and then just step in a bunch of goose doo-doos all the time. Right. Drop your Duncan in shock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gasp. This topic, we kind of suggested it on a past episode.

And also, this is coming out the Monday before U.S. Thanksgiving. I love eating poultry. I was like, hey, what about this other bird we don't eat for some reason? It's kind of like a turkey. Alex, have you eaten a Canada goose before? No, but it turns out a bunch of people have. Oh. There's a lot of hunting of them.

And also, apparently, you need to check the meat for diseases and stuff because mainly because they poop in their own water a lot. You got to be careful. I'll link about just many cities and places serving the meat in particular to homeless folks after a big culling of Canada geese. And also it's apparently delicious. The people who've eaten it compare it to beef or steak in terms of the richness of different flavors and things you can make out of it. Apparently, it's amazing. I guess that's more of a fair fight than with turkeys. I feel like turkeys are a lot more defenseless versus Canada goose, which is probably going to bring a switchblade at you if you try to turn it into a Thanksgiving.

So, you know. The true bird rights fight. Yeah. We have many numbers, including goose poop numbers. And our quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics is in a segment this week called. Numbers keep on turning. Statistics keep on burning. Numbers.

Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers and statistics. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Numbers and statistics. That name was submitted by L.S. Greger and also with a shout out to Tina Turner, which is very nice. We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit through Discord or to SifPod at gmail.com. And again, I'm begging you to make Alex explore his vocal range because I think I don't know if we've heard a falsetto out of you, young man. I want to hear it.

I want to see how that goes. Numbers. Nope. We'll get you there. Let's start with the number we foreshadowed. The first number is up to 100 pounds or about 45 kilograms. I have a bad feeling this is about poop. Yeah, this is within a year how much poop one Canada goose can generate. Yeah, Canada goose that tracks up to 100 pounds. Well, poop machines. Yeah. And very fun ratio here. I found a few different measures for average Canada goose body weight, but they're pooping about five times their body weight in a year. Canada goose body weight, but they're pooping about five times their body weight in a year. That's a lot. I mean, I would assume it's because their diet is very fibrous.

Yes. We'll talk about how they particularly love grass. They're not quite just herbivores. They will dabble like ducks do when they eat little organisms and animals in water. But they mostly eat grass. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is interesting because like you don't I guess when I think of birds, I don't think of birds eating grass like some kind of bird cow. But yeah, these guys definitely will just spend a lot of time kind of grazing, standing around pooping and grazing. Yeah, they're poop machines from eating so much grass. And it also, it just got me curious. The best estimate I could find for how much humans poop is United Nations global numbers on it. I divided that by the world's population and got an average of about 87 pounds of feces per human per year. And that's all ages, you know? Oh, that's less than a goose.

Yeah. Like we're pretty far from pooping our body weight. Yeah. And Canada geese are doing about five times their body weight per year. So they really do poop a lot compared to us. Yeah. They're doing good numbers. We got to get our numbers up. Like we got to rally, rally the troops. Yeah. It is interesting. I actually once got a question on my other podcast. It's called Creature Feature. Go check it out. Don't tell Alex. It's about animals.

It's so relevant. But yeah, but about a question about like animals who eat grass and stuff, like how come they can get so big like elephants and stuff? And like compared to a lot of birds, like Canada geese are quite large, but all they eat is vegetation. It's because they eat a huge amount of it. So like eating, being an herbivore is not strictly speaking, like the most efficient way to get, uh, get energy.

Like, cause you poop out a lot of it. You even have whole animals who have this multi-digestive system like ruminants, like cows, where they kind of digest and re-digest. That's how tough it is to be an herbivore. But the reason that they insist on being herbivores is because of the abundance of herbs, of plants. So yes, it's not particularly efficient. Herbivores generate a lot of poop, a lot of poop, compared to, say, carnivores or omnivores. But as long as they get enough of the vegetation in them, it doesn't matter if they're inefficient poop machines.

And it's so cool to think of Canada geese as a cow or elephant of birds. That's great. A massive grazer like that. It's really cool. Like you said, you know, they're a little opportunistic. They will munch a little bit of, you know, meat once in a while if they find something small enough. But actually, you know what?

Cows do that too. Cows will sometimes eat. What? Like, yeah, just like they're grazing. And if there's a what? Cows do that too. Cows will sometimes eat like, yeah, just like they're grazing. And if there's a mouse, they might just eat it. Like it, people are shocked to hear that they don't necessarily like chase after, uh, chase it after chase after rodents or, or actively predate on things, but they'll, you know, slurp up butterflies. They'll slurp up rodents if they happen upon them. Herbivores will occasionally just like, you know, see an opportunity and take it.

That's, I'm just reeling from my new impression of cows. They're great, I guess. I'm rooting for them too. Don't turn your back on cows. Not for a minute. Yeah, and Canada geese, I guess they have enough of an attitude where I'm rooting for him, too. Don't turn your back on cows. Not for a minute. Yeah, and Canada geese, I guess they have enough of an attitude where I'm less surprised that they eat a few meaty things. Right. Yeah, they're dinosaurs. They're evocative of dinosaurs. Their shape, their whole attitude is very, you know, dino-like.

Yeah, and how Jurassic World does this get, right? Well, the next number is between four and six million. Wow. And between four and six million, that's the current population estimates for Canada geese in North America. There are Canada geese in every Canadian province or territory, in Alaska, in all the contiguous 48 U.S. states and D.C. for at least part of the year. They are all over the U.S. and Canada. Wow, that's amazing. I guess it's all relative, right? Is that a good number for Canada geese? Did they used to be way more numerous or are they doing pretty good in terms of their population? That's an excellent question. And kind of a lot of the rest of the show, the gist is that this could be an all-time population peak. And also they hit a

real valley at one point in the early 1900s, a real low. And so it's good that it's up. Yeah. I feel like the early 1900s was the period of time where we would do stuff like stick a quail inside a chicken, inside a goose, inside a swan, inside an endangered panda or something, and then grill it all and douse it in gold and diamonds and then eat it. So I'm not surprised that that was, you know, the era of geese populations being a little bit sluggish. Yeah, it was the era when Teddy Roosevelt was, I think, partly famous for being a conservationist because he was one of the only ones on Earth. Everybody else didn't care. You don't want to shoot this orphaned baby bear that we've tied to a tree. What is wrong with you? Orphaned baby bear that we've tied to a tree.

What is wrong with you? Yeah, and the Canada goose, despite Canada being prominent in the name, this is a very global animal now because they've been introduced to many other locations in the world. All over Europe. I'm also going to link off to The Guardian for their coverage of Canada geese in New Zealand. Hello, New Zealand. Wow. Apparently, sportsmen introduced them there in 1905 to then hunt them. But then the population has steadily grown. In 2011, New Zealand's government stripped away environmental protections

for Canada geese because the population is thriving and they're eating a lot of farm crops. Yeah, you cannot sleep on the Canada goose. I don're eating a lot of farm crops. Yeah. You cannot sleep on the Canada goose. I don't know what these guys were thinking. Like, oh, we're just going to hunt them. It'll be fine. New Zealand belongs to the geese now. I'm sorry.

It's true. New Zealand has fallen. Apologies to the regular people there and a couple of weird tech guys who think they're going to hide out there when the world ends. You know, it's, you know, it's funny, like a lot of invasive species stories have kind of an ironic twist, right? Where it's like, well, we introduced the snake population to take care of the rat population and oops, we have too many snakes. So now we've introduced mongooses to take care of the snake population. And now, oops, we have too many mongooses and they're killing everything. The most famous example being like the cane toads in Australia introduced to eat cane beetles. And yeah, they still are a huge menace in Australia. But like at least with the cane toad, as horrifying as it is, like I see the logic of like, well, we have this,

we have this pest on our cane crops. So we're going to introduce this toad. With the Canada goose, it's just like, I don't know, I found this goose. So here, New Zealand, take this goose. Think fast. Here's a goose. It's almost the logic of a sportsman going to Jurassic Park. Right. Like, I'm here to shoot the biggest game is the reason people introduced Canada geese to New Zealand. They were sportsmen who said, I want to shoot a more interesting bird than I've been seeing. Yeah. That's it. That's why they did it.

The world's most dangerous game, the Canada goose. In many places in the world, but especially the U.S. and Canada, we feel like we see Canada geese all the time. I almost felt like they were watching me prep the episode as I went around the world. I was on the train yesterday going down the Hudson River and I saw a bunch of them and I was like, I'm working on it. yesterday going down the Hudson River and I saw a bunch of them and I was like, I'm working on it. Yeah. When I was in, I visited London and there was Canada geese. I think I saw some Egyptian geese. There was just a whole, like a cornucopia of different geese. It was exciting. And what are some other reasons we think we're seeing Canada geese all the time? One of them is that they're often in huge loud groups.

Yes. Another number here is 30 to 100. From 30 to 100 is the size range of flocks of Canada geese when they're migrating. Some of them stay put in one location year-round, but others migrate. And either way, they love being in groups. They're very social. I wanted to find a decibel level for honking, could not find that. But according to the nonprofit Ducks Unlimited, Canada geese can make more than 20

distinct sounds with their honks. Ducks Unlimited is a good website name. So presumably they are communicating different things with sort of different honks, different honks for different stronks. And I wanted like a really intense primate style study of the communication. Couldn't find that. But we have recorded a lot of distinct sounds with the honking. Right. And they are they're they're really into talking to each other in a goose way. We need like a modern Alan Turing, Alan Turing to decrypt the goose honking code.

Like let's get the Jane Goodall of Canada geese. Someone just lying there, you know, with this sort of wistful voiceover over the loud honk, honk, honk. Instead of grooming each other, they're just pooping together at different places just pooping together yeah i mean it is really interesting because the the more social an animal is typically you have uh you can have this like complex communication which can mean a variety of things. You have mating calls, but you also have like territorial calls or you have like, hey, I think I see a predator call. So I think seagulls also have a variety of different calls. Seagulls, I think in Canada, geese are kind of blood brothers in terms of how incredibly dedicated they are to being viciously annoying. incredibly dedicated they are to being viciously annoying.

Right. Yeah. And geese are just bigger. But yeah, seagulls are right there with them. And then pigeons are sort of a friend, but quieter. Yeah. Yeah. Pigeons are like the dorky little brother. But yeah, I mean, no, that's that is very interesting that they have these, like, are these flocks like typically family groups? Are they kind of a bunch of unrelated geese? And do they change over time? Are they pretty consistent in terms of their group dynamics? Great question. And kind of all of the above. Yeah.

Turns out there are a bunch of social formulations of Canada geese. There's even something that they can form called a gang brood. A what now? A gang brood. A brood. Yeah, that's when up to 100 goslings plus a few adults go around together. Like the adults are almost babysitting and all the goslings are a big school of fish sort of situation. That's adorable.

Like, yeah, I imagine them getting into all sorts of trouble. Ferris Bueller's Day Off style. But like, so are these all these goslings? I assume that the the adults are not necessarily related to all the goslings. So is this sort of a case of alloparenting where you have some adults taking care of a huge number of goslings? Some of them are maybe theirs, but some of them are of a huge number of goslings. Some of them are maybe theirs, but some of them are just other geese's goslings. Yeah. And the parents will often be nearby, especially when the goslings are super young, because also Canada geese adults

mate for the life of the partners. And then both parents will stay around the nest. It's usually the female incubating it, but the male will be there kind of bodyguarding too. Right. You got monogamous birds here. Yeah. Which, yeah, I mean, there are a lot of bird species that are monogamous for life. Some are monogamous just for mating season and some are totally not. They're just out there getting it where they can.

No judgments from me, by the way, whatever different strokes for different flocks. That's how that goes. Yeah. We won't put them on honk, which is putting on blast for geese. Yes. There's also, there's so much stuff just about how canada geese socialize that could be a lot of a podcast and my favorite thing about it is their social elements of flying together yeah this is really interesting let's talk more about that that v formation because it's really really cool yeah i i had never really thought about it across any birds, but it turns out that it is a very efficient way to fly. Each bird in the V decreases wind resistance for the bird behind it.

And then the birds take turns doing the hard work of being in front and then moving to the back to rest. It's great. Yeah, that's what's so interesting. It's not like there's like one bird leader who's like leading a squadron of of geese it is a team effort they're more like a co-op a bird co-op and uh yeah like rotating rotating through yes we're a co-op aren't we maximum fun the network is an employee-owned co-op we're just like geese it's the only one in the world of podcasting as far as I know. So they're like geese.

It's great. Honk. Anyways. Constantly pooping. Constantly pooping. Man, always pooping. But yes, they do take turns. There's also, I know this is true.

Now, Alex, tell me if this is true of geese as well. Now, Alex, tell me if this is true of geese as well. For some birds, they have this way to rest while migrating where they have one hemisphere of their brain kind of goes to sleep and the other one stays awake. And what's really interesting is when they're in this flight formation, the half of the brain, our hemispheres of brains are also connected to our eyes. So like one field of vision matches with one hemisphere of the brain, our hemispheres of brains are also connected to our eyes. So like one field of vision matches with one hemisphere of the brain and vice versa. And so when you have this V formation for birds to get some rest, they allow the half of their brain that controls their vision that is

like seeing outside of the V to be awake. And then the half of their brain that controls the field of vision that looks inside the V to be asleep because there's birds on the other side who can use the opposite side of their brain to stay awake and have that field of vision awake, which I find incredibly fascinating if I can, you know, name drop. So is this true of geese too, Alex? Yeah, apparently geese species all do this. That's amazing. I think the technical term I found is unihemispheric slow wave sleep.

That's right. Which is great. Yeah, and Canada geese are amazing at resting in the middle of massive migrations and long distance flights, not just for this unihemispheric situation. They also are good at agreeing to land and rest on water or rest on not water, land. One extreme number here, according to National Geographic, a flock of Canada geese can fly 1,500 miles in a day. Wow. If the weather allows it. And reach flight speeds of up to 70 miles per hour if they get the right tailwind.

In kilometers, because it's global, that's a one-day migration of over 2,400 kilometers with some flight speeds of over 112 kilometers per hour. That makes me feel lazy because I can do maybe like one podcast a day and then I got to tap out. Yeah. Each of us are turning off half of our brain at various points in the show so we don't burn out. You're welcome, listeners. Okay. Personal story. When I learned about unihemispheral slow wave sleep, I tried it in college, and I would close one eye and try to will half of my brain to go to sleep. And you know what?

I felt mildly rested. It's probably just that your eyes were not open so much. They're less dry. It feels great. Usually it was because I would actually nod off a little bit and then wake up and it's like, yeah, experiment success. Yeah. Yeah.

And my favorite part of them migrating and also being social is that they do group decisions on when to take off. And it's based on peer pressure, basically. That's so cool. I love that. They vote. It's a co-op and a democracy. Yeah, it's based on peer pressure, basically. That's so cool. I love that. They vote. It's a co-op and a democracy. Yeah, it's really cool. It's very Canadian, quite honestly.

And also shout out the Max Fund Co-op. It's so cool. Read about it on a site, please. Yes. Smithsonian Smart News cites a study of Canada geese using gestures and group dynamics to decide to take off. That's how they do it. I'm imagining vigorous nodding.

Do you know what the actual gestures are? Exactly. Vigorous nodding. That's right. Really? Seriously? Quoting the study, quote, flock departure was preceded by a ceremony with the neck stretched. There are quick head tossing movements with the bill pointing up and repeatedly.

Really? Oh, my God. Man, I'm so in tune with these geese. Man, can I join a Canada goose flock? I promise I'm good at pooping. Yeah, let's get some certification for it. Right. Have not a good pooping?

I do both those things most days. Get my wings. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's fantastic. I love that. They're just like, want to go? Yeah. Want to go? Nods? Do I got nods? Nods in the back? That's fantastic. but all family members can initiate this. And then the study recorded a couple of occasions when, quote, an excited immature took flight, but the rest of the family did not follow. It flew in a circle and returned with the family shortly. End quote. Oh, man. Man, I feel that.

That hurts deep. That's like unlocked some repressed memories of like, so are we going? Everyone's going? Let's go! And then walking off and realize nobody's following. That's adorable. Yeah, I feel like a big group of Canada geese is kind of wallpaper in our life when it's just

standing in a field or at a retention pond, but there could be some goose trying to build up the courage to get everybody to take off when you're looking at that. It's great. I love it. Yeah.

I think also it's really important to understand that a species of animal like the Canada goose, which is unfriendly to us and aggressive towards us, they can be nice to each other. They don't have to be mean within their group. They're just unwelcoming to us because they think we're going to eat them. And apparently we sometimes do. That's exactly right. And speaking of all that, another number here relates to both their aggression and their flight. The number is up to two meters wide.

Up to two meters wide or about six and a half feet. That's one of the largest wingspans of Canada geese. It's a subspecies called the giant Canada goose. That's their wingspan. It's always shocking to me when I like read what the actual wingspan is for a large bird. I'm like, yeah, the bird's pretty big. And then you look at the wingspan and it is just ridiculous. Like I think the wingspan of an albatross is around like eight feet, which is around like three meters or something. Yeah. It's crazy. They're all like little secret

measuring tapes where it's like, oh, there's more, there's even more wing. Yeah. And it's, it's weirdly less of part of their reputation than you would think, because aggression is part of their reputation. And let's explore all that in Takeaway number one. Canada geese turn aggressive toward us in a seasonal, parental, and predictable way, and they attack with their wings more often than they bite. Interesting. Now, Canada geese are one of these geese that kind of have like, they're not real teeth, but they're ridges inside their beaks, which look kind of menacing.

Yeah. When I was a kid, we would go to a park near us, and the main thing I was told is, stay away from the Canada geese, they bite. And it's like you said, with many birds, Canada geese are one of the birds where they have a tooth-like cartilage inside of their bill. And so, you know, it's a strong bill and it's tooth-like cartilage, so the bite hurts. But Canada geese are kind of more dangerous with their wings and more likely to attack you with a wing. Interesting. So they must have pretty yoked wings. Are they quite strong?

They are, because it's lifting a bird that's about 20 pounds as an adult. That's a chunky bird. Yeah, and wingspan of... That's an armful of bird. Right. That's a lot to put in the air with a wing. And so it's an incredibly strong wing. And a number within this takeaway is zero. Because I wanted to know, popular science says there are no documented U.S. fatalities from a Canada goose attack. Specified U.S., though. So elsewhere.

I'm covering up so much Canadian death. I refuse to address it. No, that was just the country I get. And there's no fatalities, but there's tons of stories of people needing stitches or getting bones broken due to Canada goose wing strikes. They can knock down a full-grown adult. It's pretty dangerous, and you should treat Canada geese with respect. That means that beavers and swans have directly murdered more people than Canada geese, which is surprising to me.

Right, because of their reputations for building dams and loving ballet, respectively. Right, because of their reputations for building dams and loving ballet, respectively. Yeah, no, the beaver thing, there was a beaver who bit a guy in the femoral artery and the guy bled out, unfortunately. Because, you know, like beavers don't generally go around biting you. But I guess he was, I don't know, the beaver felt cornered and bit the guy. The one with the swan is pretty sad because I think it was a guy kayaking and the swan just was attacking the guy and the guy fell in the water and somehow the swan was harassing him enough that he just couldn't get, like, he couldn't get out of the water and he drowned.

So even though swans are pretty tough, I don't think they can, the story about them using their neck to break your legs is not true. Like they can't really break your bones with their necks, but they can they can harass. They can basically harass you until you die, I suppose. Yeah, that's amazing. And I assume there would be a Canada goose story like that, like a goose scares a guy who steps into an open manhole or something, you know, but there are none that we know of. Well, not yet. That definitely is evocative of that game, the goose game.

Oh, yeah. You play that? Yes, I did. That's a great game. You play as a goose and the whole point of the game is it's a video game. The art is lovely and your whole mission is to be annoying to the human villagers. It's a goose, and the whole point of the game is it's a video game. The art is lovely, and your whole mission is to be annoying to the human villagers. It's not a Canada goose, but it's a goose. Yeah, it's a big white goose. Yeah, it's a goose nonetheless.

Yeah, but I mean, it sounds like if it's the seasonal thing that occurs, they are trying to protect their babies. Exactly. Yeah. The main reason Canada geese are aggressive with anybody, it turns out they're not just aggressive with pedestrians. They'll pursue bicyclists. They have occasionally pursued cars. Nice. Honk, honk, honk, honk. Right. What did you say about my mother? Honk. Right. What did you say about my mother, honk? So the main reason they will attack is to protect a nest.

Both parents will do this. And that also makes the attacks weirdly predictable. Data on Canada goose attacks shows that most of them happen in the spring because that is when Canada geese start their nesting season and the nest is most vulnerable. And then the attacks almost entirely stop in the fall and across the winter because the goslings are mobile. There's not really a nest to defend anymore. Like there's a time of year you can be most aware of this and on the lookout for this. You know how people do those embarrassing Facebook posts where it's like a picture of a lioness or like a bear or something. It's like, don't don't you upset Mama Bear? Like

because I guess the implication is that they're tough and will maybe kill you if you like are mean to their kid. Really, they should be using pictures of the Canada goose. using pictures of the Canada goose. Yeah, it would be a great one, because like we said, this is a democratic co-op animal that loves its kids. I don't know. That would be a good parent to be, I think. I mean, I'm feeling more and more like I already liked these for their bad reputation, but now I like them for how good they are, how cool they are.

They're like the bad boys of nature, but it turns out they got a heart of gold. Yeah, it's great. It's just really good. And apparently other reason they might attack humans is a result of overall human community behavior. If a community tends to hand feed its Canada geese, then it's humans causing Canada geese to get even more comfortable with us. So then the geese get closer to us. And then either a goose or human does something that sets off the goose in a very normal way. Like it's our fault ultimately if that's what's leading to it. Yeah.

I mean, people really love to feed birds and geese and wild animals out of kindness and love for wildlife. But like feeding bread to birds is not a good idea. It's not healthy for them. Frozen peas apparently is okay. But yeah, you shouldn't like get the goose to walk up to you and feed them peas by hand. I think that's crossing a boundary. Yeah. And we'll talk in a later takeaway about how Canada geese extremely have enough food.

They do not need your help at all. So don't do it. I don't look at a Canada goose and think it needs my help. I think I need help right now because the goose is coming after me. Yeah. And another thing here is we said it's seasonal and parental. help. I think I need help right now because the goose is coming after me. Yeah. And another thing here is we said it's seasonal and parental. Also, Canada geese are good at communicating before they attack. They're trying hard to tell us what's going on. There's usually three steps. First, they will hiss at a human. Second step is they will honk. We all know the honks are loud and we hear it. And then after all that, they will charge, usually with their wings spread to be as visually big as possible.

And also to whack you with their wing. But it's partly communication. They're really trying here. Yeah. I mean, like, look, I think they give fair enough warning. Once you're after the honking, aggressive honking stage and you're not backing off. you're at after the honking aggressive honking stage and you're not backing off yeah i don't want to victim blame anyone who's been punched by a goose but maybe i do want to victim blame people who've been punched by geese because you gotta pay attention to that body language

it's an animal where some of my sources were trying to be specific about don't call this an aggressive animal yeah because basically every time it attacks, it is reacting. You might not know you're doing something to upset a goose, but they're not out here pursuing us just to do it. It's always motivated by something. Yeah, because they want to protect their nests. They want to be good parents. They're power couples that will mess you up.

I love that. I think that's great. And I think that it's also like, you know, we got it when an animal is giving clear signs that it's not happy with you. It's okay to just back off. Like there's nothing wrong with, you know, slowly walking away from an animal. It's, uh, and not like taking a video of it to put online because then it's going to grab your phone and then publicly shame you. Yeah, we even have simple and straightforward tips for de-escalating one of these Canada goose encounters.

Experts say that if a goose is hissing or honking toward you, you should back away at medium speed. Don't run, but remain facing the goose and back away at a walking speed. And that will almost always solve the situation. And then if you run, what happens? Like, do they chase after you? Does this like trigger some kind of goosey predatory instinct? Yeah, apparently, turning away is the biggest mistake you can make. And usually if we're running away, it's not backward. So that's turning away and running. They'll decide, oh, I can strike now.

Like they're afraid of me and I can fully successfully defend my nest. Right. Okay. Because they're not taking any chances. Yeah. Back away. Maintain eye contact or no? Does it matter? It. Doesn't matter.

It seems to not matter. The tips are back away at a medium speed. And also, if for some reason they keep pursuing you, try to make yourself look large. So this is a weird thing where you need to both intimidate the goose, but not further provoke it, if that makes sense. Like, be sure to still seem like a whole human who can protect themselves, but don't badger it. The goose has to respect you, I think. Like, you can't aggravate the goose too much, but the goose can't disrespect you, though. Otherwise, the goose is going to show you who's boss. You have to have a mutual respect. And then I think, I imagine once you've succeeded, the goose just kind of gives you a nod, like, you're all right. That's pretty much the advice is don't seem like a weenie who it

can beat up. Yeah. And also don't try to fight it. That's it. That sounds very similar to bear advice, where it's like, you know, don't, don't make yourself look like prey, like a delectable little human sandwich, but also don't, you know, try to make yourself look like you're about to kidnap their adorable little cubs. Yeah. And I like how manageable and social and straightforward that is. It's like most of our interactions with other people or something, you know, like you just learn the rules and do it.

Yeah. Like when I'm in a conversation and it's getting a little heated, I like lift my arms over my hand, over my head and back away and I'm like, I'm big, I'm big. I'm loving your new hard hitting interview show, by the way, where you do that a lot. It's great. Yeah, yeah. Listen, Senator, and you're just waving your pantsuit jacket around you. Yeah, yeah.

Shaking a can full of pennies. Answer the question. Shake, shake, shake. Mitch McConnell flips on his back. Animal joke about a senator. Anyway. So, folks, that's a bunch of numbers about this amazing animal and one takeaway. And then we have many more takeaways about it because it's such a rich topic. We'll talk about its rapid recent spread across the earth after a short break.

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I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience.

One you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And folks, we are back. Our last two takeaways are really the full story of Canada geese in our modern world, starting with takeaway number two. Human activity almost wiped out Canada geese, and we barely turned that around about 100 years ago. No wonder they want revenge. Right. Fair, fair, fair, fair. They get a few bites in for that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad we got them back. But so what were we doing? Was this a classic case of

hunting for the meat or were we trying to get rid of them because we thought they were pests, like with the passenger pigeon? It was an overhunt. Yeah. We just found it fun and delicious to kill as many of these as possible. Yeah. I mean, delicious maybe, but it's hard for me to imagine it's fun to fight with Canada geese. I assume we fought dirty. We did. It was also a specific group of people and era fighting dirty. Before the Columbian Exchange, pretty much all native peoples hunted Canada geese if they were around. Also, the range of Canada geese was not as large as it is today.

It was more of a northern animal, especially the Great Lakes of the U.S. and Canada today. But I'll link an Audubon article about modern Cree people who have continued to hunt Canada geese in a sustainable, seasonal way. As colonizers invaded North America, some of them, especially in the late 1800s, did new aggressive stuff. And the nastiest move was what is called a live decoy. Oh, no, I don't like I don't like where this is going. It's bad. What they did is they captured a live Canada goose and rendered it flightless by maiming it. And then they would put the flightless goose on a pond. It uses these amazing social honks to call out to other geese.

And then those geese are lured to be killed as well. Oh, that's like nightmarish, man. And like unfair. It's easy mode hunting. It's stupid. Other than people who hunt responsibly, right? Like if you're hunting for fun, just for funsies, not for the meat, what you should do is arm the goose, like give the goose like switchblades, a helmet. Right. Chain gun. Yeah, exactly. Power-ups. Make it,

make it fair. Make it fair. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I mean, yeah, it's kind of weird that we're like, oh, we have this awareness that it's this highly social creature who has these social bonds and they call out to each other and then they all get together. And we just use that to kill them rather than respect them. Not saying we shouldn't have hunted them at all, but hunting them respectfully is definitely an option. Yeah, because there's an amount you can hunt them, too. They're pretty good at reproducing and living and sustaining a population if we don't just try to go full passenger pigeon American bison on them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And hunters did these live decoys into the 1950s because the 50s were around when people invented mechanical goose calls as a replacement and just a tool.

And then there's also a few regions like the Aleutian Islands where there were Canada geese populations that didn't really have larger predatory animals around them. And so then when basically pirates from Russia and Europe showed up, they overhunted those geese because they just weren't very wary of anything. Sort of the dodo problem. Although I think dodos also were attacked by the dogs, cats, and rats that came along with the sailors. So it wasn't just the sailors. It was like a four-pronged attack on the poor dodo. So it wasn't just the sailors. It was like a four-pronged attack on the poor dodo. Exactly. And like the hunting plus those situations plus other limited amounts of habitat loss, that combination meant that the Canada geese population hit an all-time low in the early 1900s.

How low are we talking? It was probably a few hundred thousand, which is still not the level that bison hit and some other species hit, but pretty low. And also they were what's called extirpated from many regions of North America. That's when locally an animal goes extinct and is no longer around. The key is like, you can't necessarily bring back a species if you have at least like two to like, you know, mate. a species if you have at least like two to like you know mate uh once you start to dwindle down like you uh uh you've limited sort of the genetic uh pool of the species and then it makes it a lot harder uh so i mean a few hundred thousand is like definitely makes sense that they were able

to bounce back from that but yeah it's not like uh like oh it's fine it's a few hundred thousand that's plenty like you do have to start it's fine. It's a few hundred thousand. That's plenty. Like you do have to start worrying once it gets down to that level, because it can kind of get away with you how quickly the population can collapse. And then once it's small enough, it can be really hard for a breeding program to actually have viable animals that can repopulate. Like it's a rare success story where that happens. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And this animal, it is a success story. And it is partly because of traditional environmentalism and conservationism, especially the kind in the early 1900s that saved

species like the American bison. Similar activists managed to push the United States and British Canada to sign a Migratory Bird Treaty, an international agreement to protect many birds, including Canada geese. And both countries followed that up with national laws. The 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act gave major protections to Canada geese in the United States, and until recently it barred hunting or killing of them. And that's even in situations where the population bounced back and became what's considered a pest to people. Right. What about self-defense? Like, can you kill one in self-defense?

Oh, I don't know. I wish they pitched it that way. A little criminal law, criminal justice. You're not a bird lawyer. Any bird defense attorneys, do you know? Yeah. Law and order and geese, right? That's the spinoff. There we go. Instead of bum bum, it's honk honk. Anyway, one particularly wild example is 1946. Huge flocks of Canada geese descended on farms in Oregon, and JSTOR Daily describes them as gobbling up wheat and barley fields, quote, like locusts. But this national law, it changed U.S. policy on Canada geese so much that people were not allowed to hunt them, even in that case. Instead, the government deployed a program of smoke grenades in locations where they were trying to clear the geese and also using small airplanes to spook and redirect goose flocks to other places. Like, so just like little airplanes painted with like a spooky face on it.

Like, what are they doing? Like doing like diving out these birds? How are they scaring them with planes? Yeah, like reverse fly away home, kind of. There were other refugee areas that they could either lead them to or with loud engines push them to. Yeah.

I see. I see. So either like, hi, I'm your mommy. Come follow me. Or like, I'm totally not your mommy. I'm going to eat you. I'm a plane. Yeah. Yeah, like air plane. Yeah. Yeah.

Like air monster. Yeah. And as much as there is that bison style conservation success story, we have done way more for this species than almost any other species in terms of accidentally saving it. And that's our other takeaway. Takeaway number three. The past century of U.S. and Canadian land development basically terraformed the continent for Canada geese specifically. Interesting. Maybe that was their plan all along. So what did we do?

It's an amazing story because I find it very different from bison. Like bison are still pretty numbers limited due to a lack of habitat and due to the cities and towns and suburbs that we've built. Canada geese love them. Maybe because of the grass? That's the main reason. Yeah, we just had our grass episode, right? Yeah, yeah, that was two weeks ago. And here we are with a super relevant story.

You don't have to have heard that episode to enjoy this right now, but it's really enriching it, I think. But now you have to listen if you haven't, because who doesn't want to learn about grass? Grass. It's actually really good. It's very good. One of my favorites. If I might, yeah, say so myself. very good. If I might say so myself. If people have heard the recent grass episode, we talked about colonizer activity basically being a grass apocalypse and transplant for North America. We

replaced a bunch of local grass with stuff like Kentucky bluegrass and lawn grass. Canada geese are freaks for that stuff. They cannot get enough of it. By the way, tons of sources for these takeaways. Science writer Marianne Renaud in The Atlantic. JSTOR Daily piece by Lena Zeldovich. The book The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. PeaceforVox.com by Phil Edwards. But they all kind of talk about what Canada geese want.

And we can't know their hearts. Like maybe they missed the previous version of North America. Is this like dating tips for Canada geese? Is this like some kind of like weird pickup artistry for Canada geese? I'm in love, Katie, and I don't care who knows it. I love a bird. Anyway. How do you neg a bird? Like nice feathers, loser.

It turns out there are three main things that Canada geese look for in a habitat. One of them is food, primarily herbivores. And they are obsessed with eating Poa pretensis. Oh. They are obsessed with eating Poa pretensis. Oh. Poa pretensis, the scientific name for Kentucky bluegrass, which is a grass originally from Europe and West Asia. So we have massively filled the continent with a food that they did not have before and love.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. We accidentally supercharged the geese. So I'm on board so far. Number one, they love food. That describes me as well. The other two things they want are water to drink and also enjoy.

Love water. And they want wide, flat, unobstructed views to scan for danger. Alex, am I a goose? Exactly. Like we, with every lawn, every retention pond, every golf course, humans also have just done a bunch of leveling previously hilly land on this continent. And we, it's like a Canada goose rubbed a magic lamp and got what a genie gave them. It's crazy how much they are theoretically excited about what we've done. You look under like Lincoln's top hat and there's like a Canada goose doing a ratatouille to shape the nation. It's been a long, long-term plan of the Canada goose to,

actually, it's more like he'd be controlling, what's that dingus's name? The guy who, we talked about him in the World Fair episode. Robert Moses. Canada geese were behind the suburbification of the U.S. by controlling Robert Moses like a ratatouille.

I read about it in Robert Caro's book, The Power Honker. Honk. I mean build the West Side Highway in Manhattan. Well, these geese are relatable to the American dream of a white picket fence and a bunch of geese turds. They really are. Like, it's maybe globally unique.

We can't underemphasize it. Like, there are so many species where human activity and human development happened. And we're like, let's do environmentalism to,ism to carve out space for this species to still live. And then Canada geese specifically are loving human development and activity. They're like, ones who are really good at not just adapting to the urban landscape, but actually exploiting it to their benefit. But I guess these are kind of like suburban exploiters because it sounds like they're in the burbs eating your lawn. exploiters because it sounds like they're in the burps eating your lawn. Yeah, they especially are because like cities have enough park space and cities are often near water in a way where that also works for them. But, you know, pigeons, which in the wild love nesting in high cliffs and stuff, those are particularly happy about a dense city. Canada geese, as much as they like a city, really love a suburb or a town or a place that is urban, but not Manhattan. Man, I say we hand the suburbs over to the geese at this point.

I see where the long arc of history is going. It's going to be given to the geese. Yeah, and they even seem to have the same kind of schedules and lives as us in a way that many other urban exploiters do not. In her piece for The Atlantic, Marion Renault says that Canada geese might be the most prominent synanthrope in the entire animal kingdom in our experience. And a synanthrope is an animal that lives around humans without being domesticated. But, you know, synanthropes like raccoons and possums are nocturnal, so we humans don't see them so much. Animals like rats and deer scurry away from us. Canada geese don't. And animals like mice and pigeons and

seagulls are not physically imposing. Like, this is a humongous daytime schedule, not afraid of us animal in a truly unique way. And then also their population is exploding because of all the lawns we planted. Although in the city where I live, the pigeons here are mega relaxed. They are so chill. They're just blissed out. I even with like my dog, cause I've trained my dog not to be too mean to pigeons. And, uh, you know, they just like sit there and look at you and it's like, Hey man. And it's really cute. They, they're, they'll just like be relaxing on, on, uh, the park lawn and literally not flinch,

not move. And I thought at first maybe they were sick or something was wrong, but no, it turns out they're just super relaxed. That's cool. Yeah. It's a very Italian pigeon to me. Well, I think part of it is there's not, people do not let their cats outside at all. I've never seen a cat out. And dogs aren't really big threats to the pigeons. I think the dogs mostly like make a big fuss, but then never really do much. And so, yeah, I think the lack of cats and the fact that people pretty much have adapted to the pigeons and I don't see people getting too upset at them, you know, has led to incredibly relaxed cohabitation with the pigeons. It's fun. It's nice. Yeah. And Canada geese aren't scared of that stuff either. Like they're just dinosaurs thriving around us and not sweating us and hissing at us and honking at us.

Yeah, because like I can't I feel like a cat could get messed up by a Canada goose. Like the best a cat's going to get is like a really young gosling. But if it can get there, because otherwise it's going to get turned into like a cat scramble by a big, tough goose wing. Yeah, and Canada geese are so safe from everything. We've gone from these 1910s, 1920s laws banning hunting them to most places trying to hunt them to contain the population. I'm going to link a huge set of tables and charts from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They say across two years of hunting seasons, 2020 and 2021, in just two years of hunting seasons, U.S. hunters bagged over 3.9 million Canada geese. Wow. And that is like legal hunting considered

sustainable. We can kill that many of them and the population is still here. All right. We say sustainable, but in terms of them catching on to our antics and turning against us, how long do you think we have? Oh, not long. Because also there's a bunch of other antics other places are doing. Some local communities will have people go out and dip Canada goose eggs in corn oil to suffocate some of the eggs to decrease the population. The city of St. Louis tried putting wooden decoy eggs out to trick the parents into wasting time on those and decrease the population. So is the reason that you don't just like take the eggs and turn them into omelets that like they will just lay more eggs? I guess so. I didn't come across anyone eating the eggs.

I've heard goose eggs are quite good, like duck and goose eggs, I thought are good, good eaten. Yeah. So I don't know why a Canada goose egg would not be good. But I would assume that maybe if you take the eggs away, they're just like, well, we got to make more eggs. So then maybe they'd lay more eggs. They're good at nesting and laying eggs. Yeah. And and yeah, like you said, there's also just tons of domesticated geese species that

we eat and fire them. And yeah, yes, it's definitely a plausible thing. We've just left this species not domesticated. Yeah. In a way that is kind of by choice, kind of by the temperament of the animal. Right, right. That's it. There's a there's also a trick that the Chicagoland suburbs tried in the 1990s. I didn't hear about this growing up there, but apparently some suburbs brought in swans in hopes that importing swans would kick the Canada geese off their turf. It did lead to some invasive swan population situations, but oh well. It never works, folks. You always think

that this time we can solve an animal problem with another animal, but it never works. The only time it works is if that animal is actually indigenous to the region and you're repopulating it. So like sometimes repopulating areas of the Northern U.S. with like gray wolves, like actually helps like the local deer population because having a good balance of prey and predator is actually good for both the prey and the predator. Like it sounds like having more predators would be bad, but having more predators means that you can prevent the spread of disease by keeping the population not so dense. So you do actually see success with

reintroducing a species to somewhere where it has been missing, but taking a species that is not native to that area, like I don't think has ever been good. At best it's been sort of neutral. Yeah. And that's really what a lot of cities are finding. And, and also Canada geese live so close to us. We can't bring in lions or, you know, right. We can't bring in a massive dangerous predator predator that would eat us, too. And they just love what we're doing with a lot of places on the earth. John Green cites figures saying that at any given time, about 80% of American humans are in or near urban areas. And for Canada geese, the number is about 75%.

Wow. They are about as likely to live in a suburb or a city as a human being is. Wow. And between that and the world we built for them, they're probably going to be here for a long time. Have we tried sex education for the geese? Like goose condoms? You know? I'm remembering our ducks episode where we talked about duck penises a lot. Yeah. And I'm realizing I did not look into Canada goose penises I don't know I don't think there is How the condom demo works

Hang on, I'm looking up a photo because I'm brave Canada Thank you Goose penis And it is I'm hoping they're a cloacal kiss species It's definitely weird looking. Like, it kind of...

It's sort of... It's not as... It's not, like, corkscrew-y like a duck, but it's... Okay. ...kind of wrinkly and long and strange. Yeah, they're basically people. Shout out Canada geese.

I hope you're listening. Uh... Hope you're listening. Hey, folks, that's the main episode for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features for you, such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. you, such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, Canada geese turn aggressive in a seasonal, parental, predictable way. And they fight with their wings much more than they bite. Takeaway number two, human activity almost wiped out Canada geese, and we barely turned that around about a hundred years

ago. Takeaway number three, the past century of U.S. and Canada land development basically terraformed the continent for Canada geese specifically. Plus so many other numbers about how these birds fly, honk, socialize, live, and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumBun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists,

so members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is two stories. It's a myth about the Canada goose name and a much stranger fact about Canada goose identity. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 14 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of Max Fun bonus shows. It's special audio. It's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's

page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include tons of digital material from National Geographic, Popular Science, JSTOR Daily, The Atlantic, also the book The Anthropocene Reviewed by YouTuber, science writer, and novelist John Green, data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and more. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skadigok people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories

and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join that Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord. And hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode one. The generator picked the first episode. It's about U.S. post offices. I am so grateful that we are still here thanks to donors of this show who have made the entire thing possible. And first episode's still a good one. Check it out. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie

Golden's weekly podcast Creature Feature about animals. Hey, we love animals. And science and more. Our theme music is Unbroken, Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members. And thank you to all our listeners.

I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.