Scrambled, Poached, or Friedl'd?

Annie Chesnut

If you are noticing fewer Canada geese this year around your favorite local ponds, lakes, beaches, and grassy areas, you may have an egg addler named Friedl Muller- Landau to thank.

An egg addler's job is to make bird eggs unviable. One way to do this is by gently smearing nest eggs with oil so that their permeability is reduced and air is prevented from reaching the embryo. The embryo fails to develop and there is one less goose to hatch come springtime.

Muller-Landau, who lives in the Roaring Brook Lake area, is the official egg addler of Putnam Valley, which pays him a small stipend. Currently, he addles at both Roaring Brook Lake and Lake Peekskill.

The process requires not only a deft hand and a knack for finding nesting areas, but also a keen understanding of the behavior of geese.

"They mate for life, and they will return to the same nesting area year after year," Muller-Landau said. His job in Lake Peekskill was made tougher, he explained, by the fewer, smaller beaches, and the large number of houses that have been built right on the shores of the lake, meaning that many geese have to go farther back into the woods to make their nests. These nests are much harder to find than those on the beaches or lawns around Roaring Brook Lake. Muller-Landau uses a boat to look for the rare quiet and relatively undisturbed places that geese would choose for nesting. When he finds a nest, both of the nesting birds are almost always nearby, but their instinct is to distract the intruder by leading him away from the nest, so they head off in a different direction. Muller-Landau then goes to the nest and, using a soft rag, applies cooking oil to the eggs. "I always try to leave at least one egg," he said, "because the eggs get cold once they are addled, and if they all go cold [or if he simply took all of the eggs and discarded them] the geese will just lay more. If there is one warm egg, they won't do that. When it is raining or the weather is colder, I will leave more than one live egg." The process is regulated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Humane Society has published a guidebook of "Wild Goose Egg Addling Protocol":

Friedl Muller-Landau holds a prosthetic egg.

If the gander is not immediately obvious, be watchful for his return, perhaps by air, in response to his mate's calls. Cheap umbrellas, the kind without pointed ends, have several advantages for fending. Carried closed and opened near the goose with some shaking and noise, there is an element of surprise when a solid visual barrier springs opens in front of the geese. (The advantage of using cheap umbrellas is that geese do break some.)

 

Muller-Landau confirms that geese can be very aggressive, and he has, on occasion, been attacked from above by an angry bird diving and pecking at him. When asked if he ever felt the need to wear protective headgear, he dismissed the question. "They don't hurt you," he said.

Canada geese are a federally protected species and injuring them is a criminal offense, so regardless of how a goose behaves, the addler has to be careful not to injure it. Record keeping and reporting are also required.

In lieu of addling, one could also replace the real eggs with fake ones. While wooden eggs have been used successfully in some areas, polyurethane casting resin can provide lightweight, lifelike eggs, (see photo) which are convincingly realistic and last a long time.

PV Supervisor Bob Tendy shared his views on the process. "Egg addling is necessary if we are to keep the waters of our lakes clean and if we are to enjoy our lakes for swimming," he said. "Geese are becoming so numerous that they are fouling the water at our beaches, sometimes causing us to close the beaches for health reasons."

"Most of the Canada Geese we see here are no longer from Canada," he said. "They have found the Northeast United States quite comfortable. Unfortunately, the geese droppings are everywhere: they cover our docks and litter the beaches. You have to go to some of our beaches, particularly in July and August to really understand how bad the problem can get. Last year one of the beaches in Lake Peekskill became virtually unusable because of this."

For now, Roaring Brook Lake's population seems to be under control, but Lake Peekskill still needs work, according to Muller-Landau.

Muller-Landau understands the problem and is doing his best to address it.