A goose dies by the side of the grocery store.
Grass encircles it. Dogs explore its stomach.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources warns,
a pair of geese can quickly become 100.
Their feces will foul the area, be it pond, office park,
condominium, golf course, farm. A combination of draining
wetlands for crop production, egg harvesting, and hunting
decimated the goose population. Today, an estimated
100,000 individual geese live in Ohio. Geese eat virtually all
agricultural grain products. Geese that are fed will lose
their fear of humans. The Federal Migratory Bird
Treaty Act allows for non-lethal scaring and hazing
tactics, including but not limited to pyrotechnics. The Federal
Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal to take one
of the 1,100 protected birds listed. The Act defines take
as pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, collect, or attempt
to pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect.
Landing on an uncovered oil waste pit or colliding with a power line
can kill a bird. These kinds of deaths are called incidental takes, that is,
deaths that occur due to activities that are otherwise lawful.
I’ll admit, I’ve hissed at the geese on the bike trail. I’ve admired
the rainbow of oil in the river. 33 years and three months
when it died, the oldest known wild Canada goose was banded
in Ohio in 1969. That December, the draft came. In May,
after the National Guard shot and killed 4 students at Kent State,
4 million students walked out. Shut down 450 colleges. Smashed
windows, slashed tires, threw bedsprings off overpasses, ceremonially buried
the Constitution. We know how old the oldest goose was
because we killed it. I have taken pains to avoid the gaggle
on the road and I have taken pictures of the gray, fluffy young.
When their goslings are half-grown, new parents undergo a molt
in which they lose all their flight feathers. For about three weeks
in June, they have nowhere else to go.
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Isaiah Yonah Back-Gaal is a queer poet, climate justice organizer, and drag performer from Brooklyn. They completed an MFA in creative writing at The Ohio State University where they served as Managing Editor of The Journal. Their work can be found in or is forthcoming in Seventh Wave Magazine, 14 Poems, and Copper Nickel and has received support from the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Tin House, and more. See what they’re up to at isaiahbackgaal.com
