While every animal, no matter how ugly or useless, has its defenders, no one seems to like Canada Geese. And better yet, everyone seems to want them dead.

The Post is reporting today that some 600 Canada Geese that have long called Anacostia Park their home may soon be killed, due to their tendency to eat vital marsh grasses and then defecate in the already-polluted river. In a hearing last week held by the National Park Service on the geese, one local environmental activist showed no mercy for their existence, arguing, “It’s nice to think about never harming another creature…Preserving that at the [cost of the] long-term success of the river, I think, is a mistake.”

The geese have long provoked complaints. Last May, the groundskeeping staff at the Langston Legacy Golf Course in Southeast complained that the geese were eating the grass on the fairway and then leaving their business behind. The same month, the City Paper dedicated an entire cover story to the geese, writing, “[the birds’] prolific pooping poses a nuisance” to the area’s ecosystem.