May 25, 2006
Morning Roundup: Click It or Ticket Edition
Forgetful drivers be warned -- this is not the week to not wear your seatbelt. The Metropolitan Police Department has announced that through June 4 they will be stepping up enforcement of the city's seatbelt laws, violations of which can result in a $50 fine and two points on your license. The District Department of Transportation has reported that seatbelt usage in the District stands at 89 percent -- leaving 11 percent of drivers at a much higher risk of death in crashes. And for those of you hoping to skip out on a ticket, remember this -- in the District, not wearing a seat-belt is justification enough to be pulled over.
New Nats Owners Want Above-Ground Parking: It seems that the honeymoon between the District and new Nats owner Ted Lerner is over. The Post is reporting that Lerner is pushing for 1,200 spaces of above-ground parking around the new stadium in Southeast, angering city officials who believe the parking structures would cut into what they see as a future entertainment district. The underground parking options are favored by most city officials, though there have been no discussions as to who would pick up the estimated $50 million price-tag. Lerner, a developer, has expressed concern that underground parking would take longer to build.
Canada Geese Not Welcome in District: It seems that the City Paper really was on to something when they recently reported that Canadian Canada Geese are threatening the Anacostia River waterfront. NBC 4 writes that groundskeepers at the Langston Legacy Golf Course in Southeast are a little peeved with the geese, who seem to have no problem doing their business on the fairway. The quote of the day may come from head groundskeeper Dowell Davis, who frustratingly remarked, "They're very prolific eaters and they're also prolific dumpers of feces."
Group Releases List of Endangered Memorials: The D.C. Preservation League has listed a little-known World War I memorial as one of the District's most endangered, notes NBC 4. The group claims that the memorial is in serious need of repairs, though the U.S. Park Service has no funds for them. Other endangered memorials and property includes St. Elizabeths Hospital, the Soldiers Home, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, MLK Jr. Memorial Library and a number of schools.
This Day in DCist: One year ago today we found neighborhood listservs, analyzed an important U.S. Supreme Court case in D.C. development history, and cooked up some roast organic chicken.
Briefly Noted: District so over Wal-Mart ... Police in Maryland use MySpace to track down suspects ... Some GMU applicants won't need SAT scores for admission ... High gas prices not dissuading holiday travelers.
Picture snapped by Terecico
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They're not Canadian Geese, they're Canada Geese. What their actual nationality is isn't clear from this story...
It's "Canada geese," not "Canadian" geese.
Tholos
ehh, the geese were here first. I'd rather have a goose "dumping feces" on my yard, vs. a golfer. Golfer feces is the worst, man.
Poor geese.
I love the little f'ers, even though they're all over the place and their crap is everywhere.
the geese were here first? jeez, so were the dinosaurs. it's called progress, man. get into it!
golfer feces is just the price to pay for an urbane existance in our modern times.
F** the geese. I'm usually on the side of the animals, but those geese turned any sort of outside activity into "roll around in goose shit". My hometown tried everything to get rid of the geese. Nothing works except killing them.
The geese may have been here first, but they didn't used to crash on the couch, raid the 'fridge, crap on the carpet. Now, they're eating and fouling the true natives out of house and home. At this point, they're worse than pigeons and barely better than those damn English sparrows.
It's a good thing that they're pissing off golfers- maybe they'll open season on them, and some of us could enjoy a nice goose dinner.
Those geese are evil. When they're not hissing at people walking by or walking on top of parked cars (trust me, I saw this occur), they are pooping everywhere they can. Go back to Canada!
I love the geese, and if some yuppies playing kickball slide in their shit, well, wah.
It's also right around the time of year where mating canada geese lose their flight feathers, so they probably deserve a pass for not simply flying away.
I worked as a volunteer at an historic farm in suburban Chicago as a teenager. We used Geese as guard animals. They worked. And so much safer than dogs.
Like the ever expanding deer population, suburban sprawl has been great for geese. We got rid of their natural predators and created all these great ponds and green places for them where once they didn't exist.
I'm usually all for the notion that "they were here first" but in the case of geese and deer, the sheer numbers that are here now were not here before and that's because of us...btw, many golf courses and other areas plagued with geese us sheep dogs to keep them off the property.
It's a balance thing- the local ecosystem never had to and isn't able to support a large non-migratory population of them.
the local ecosystem never had to and isn't able to support a large non-migratory population of us, either. If one disregards the "aesthetic" complaints about geese and their poop and gets right down to the matter of what their envronmental impact is, it still seems like a pretty selective bitch - I mean, really, does goose shit pollute the soil and water even 1/100 of 1% as much as, say, the polluted runoff from a pesticide-laced golf course? I'll defer to EPA on that one, but it sounds pretty specious to me.
I just read that a Canada Goose can drop 5 lbs of goose poop a day. 100 geese = more than a ton a week. I knew it was copious. It's great to make fun of, but annoyingly, it's also a real problem. It CAN become a pollution problem. One way to help is to plant a buffer between the greenway and the water... grassy areas right up to waters edge (which we love in golf courses and planned communities) is like Nirvana for a goose. Or hundreds of geese.
And then they stop migrating... and then they are pests. And then we all get to bicker over the humane treatment of them.
Why don't we just send low-flying aircraft over golf courses? Goose puree for everyone!
Did anyone actually bother reading the article? The geese are NON-NATIVE and are an invasive species. They are polluting and destroying the wetlands, out-competing native species and are a huge nuisance to any person who enjoys grass fields, not just golfers. As an enviromentalist I think we should kill them all to get rid of them.
Yeah, get rid of those filthy geese! Because they are doing much more damage to the Anacostia than the sewage overflow dumping that happens every time it rains.