The Anthropocene Reviewed(16)

Canada geese were particularly susceptible to so-called “live decoys.” Hunters captured geese, rendered them flightless, and kept them in ponds or fields. The call of these captured geese then attracted flocks of wild ones, which could be shot. Hunters often doted on their live decoys. A hunter named Philip Habermann wrote, “Watching and listening to the decoys work was akin to the pleasure of hunting with a fine dog,” a reminder that humans have long drawn strange lines between pet and prey.

But in 1935, live decoys were made illegal, and goose populations began to recover—very slowly at first, and then spectacularly.

In mid-January 1962, Harold C. Hanson was among the ornithologists who sought to band, weigh, and measure some Minnesota geese. “On that memorable day,” he would later write, “the temperature held around zero and a strong wind blew but this only added zest to the enterprise.” The geese they weighed were so huge that they thought the scales must be off, but no: It turned out the giant Canada goose had survived. These days, there are over one hundred thousand giant Canada geese in Minnesota. Non-native populations of the geese have exploded from Australia to Scandinavia. In Britain, the Canada goose population has risen by a factor of at least twenty in the past sixty years.

This success is partly down to those laws protecting the birds, but also because in the past several decades, humans have rendered lots of land perfect for geese. Heavily landscaped suburbs, riverside parks, and golf courses with water features are absolutely ideal living conditions for them. Canada geese especially love eating seeds from the Poa pratensis plant, which is the most abundant agricultural crop in the United States. Also known as Kentucky bluegrass, we grow Poa pratensis in parks and in our front yards, and since the plant is of limited utility to humans,* geese must feel like we plant it just for them. One ornithologist observed, “Goslings and adults were found to show a marked preference for Poa pratensis from about 36 hours after hatching.”

Geese also enjoy rural fields near rivers and lakes, but the ratio of city geese to country geese in the United States is actually quite similar to the human ratio. At any given time, about 80 percent of American humans are in or near urban areas. For Canada geese, it’s about 75 percent.

In fact, the more you look, the more connections you find between Canada geese and people. Our population has also increased dramatically in the past several decades—there were just over two billion people on Earth in 1935, when live goose decoys were made illegal in the U.S. In 2021, there are more than seven billion people. Like humans, Canada geese usually mate for life, although sometimes unhappily. Like us, the success of their species has affected their habitats: A single Canada goose can produce up to one hundred pounds of excrement per year, which has led to unsafe E. coli levels in lakes and ponds where they gather. And like us, geese have few natural predators. If they die by violence, it is almost always human violence. Just like us.

But even though Canada geese are perfectly adapted to the human-dominated planet, they seem to feel nothing but disdain for actual humans. Geese honk and strut and bite to keep people away, even though they’re thriving because of our artificial lakes and manicured lawns. In turn, many of us have come to resent Canada geese as a pest animal. I know I do.

But they also allow me to feel like there’s still some proper nature in my highly sanitized, biologically monotonous suburban life. Even if geese have become mundane, there remains something awe-inspiring about seeing them fly overhead in a perfect V formation. As one enthusiast put it, the Canada goose “excites the imagination and quickens the heartbeat.” More than pigeons or mice or rats, geese still feel wild to me.

I suppose it’s a kind of symbiotic relationship in which neither party much likes the other, which reminds me: Just before graduating from college, my girlfriend and I were on our way to pick up some groceries in her ancient blue sedan when she asked me what my biggest fear was.

“Abandonment,” I said. I was worried the end of college would spell the end of our relationship, and I wanted her to reassure me, to tell me that I need not fear being alone, because she would always be there, and etc. But she wasn’t the sort of person to make false promises, and most promises featuring the word “always” are unkeepable. Everything ends, or at least everything humans have thus far observed ends.

Anyway, after I said abandonment, she just nodded, and then I filled the awkward silence by asking her what her biggest fear was.

“Geese,” she answered.

And who can blame her? In 2009, it was a flock of Canada geese that flew into the engines of US Airways Flight 1549, forcing Captain Sully Sullenberger to splash-land the aircraft on the Hudson River. In 2014, a Canadian cyclist spent a week in the hospital after being attacked by a Canada goose.

You can do something about abandonment. You can construct a stronger independent self, for instance, or build a broader network of meaningful relationships so your psychological well-being isn’t wholly reliant upon one person. But you, as an individual, can’t do much about the Canada goose.

And that seems to me one of the great oddities of the Anthropocene. For better or worse, land has become ours. It is ours to cultivate, to shape, even ours to protect. We are so much the dominant creature on this planet that we essentially decide which species live and which die, which grow in numbers like the Canada goose, and which decline like its cousin the spoon-billed sandpiper. But as an individual, I don’t feel that power. I can’t decide whether a species lives or dies. I can’t even get my kids to eat breakfast.