Diminishing Returns : Fewer Canada Geese Winter in Valley as Open Space Is Lost

The flocks of Canada geese that have become a picturesque feature of San Fernando Valley winters are dwindling, and it’s causing quite a flap.

The local Audubon Society’s count of birds wintering in the Valley has plunged over the last four years from 1,700 in 1992 to 600 last month, said Goose Project founder Rosemarie White.

“The Canada geese are a dramatic and beautiful species, and their migration each year embodies a sense of hope in people,” said White, president of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society. “If we lose that, it would be a real tragedy.”

White and other goose enthusiasts attribute the birds’ decline to the disappearance of fields and farms in the Valley, which formerly attracted thousands of the geese annually.

As many as 3,500 geese would flock to the Chatsworth and Encino reservoirs, Pierce College and the Sepulveda Basin, drawn by the availability of water and wide swaths of grass. The geese usually arrive in the Valley around mid-October and return to their summer homes in Utah, Montana and Colorado in mid-March.

The journey to the Valley became a feature of local life as residents watched the masses of raucously honking birds fly overhead in V formations or gracefully swim in lakes and ponds. Pierce College’s farm became such a popular spot that the school started an annual Goose Walk in 1994 to offer an up-close look at the birds foraging for tender grass shoots.

But each year, development has encroached further on their habitat. Lake Balboa and golf courses in the Sepulveda Basin have displaced cornfields and grass. Sports concessions in parts of the Sepulveda Basin and at Chatsworth Reservoir, which are in the talking stage, could continue to reduce their numbers, Audubon members say.

“The simple fact is there is no open space left in the Valley that would support geese,” said Reseda resident Sandy Wohlgemuth, a member of the Valley Audubon Society.

Wohlgemuth has occasionally spotted a small flock of geese feeding at a tiny lake on a golf course near Porter Ranch.

Urbanization is also the central problem in other parts of Southern California that have seen a drop in geese migration. In Orange County, the grasses and grazing areas of the El Toro Y--where the Golden State and San Diego freeways converge--and Irvine Park have been replaced with houses and office buildings. And the number of geese tallied has dropped from a high of 2,250 in 1989 to 365 in 1994. It rose slightly to 428 last year.

“If you had a photo of Orange County 10 years ago and compared the development then to now, we’ve lost so much habitat and so many birds that it’s really upsetting,” said Curtis Johnson, a member of the Sea & Sage Audubon Society in Orange County.

The increase in development has sent the geese elsewhere for food, mostly to the Imperial Valley, said Dan Yparraguirre, a senior wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

“When you look at Southern California and watch it change from cattle-grazing pasture to houses and office buildings, [the geese] are forced to take up residence in golf courses or find somewhere else to go,” Yparraguirre said.

In fact, the geese have transplanted themselves so well to Northern California and other parts of the country that they’ve become a nuisance. Officials in the Bay Area city of Fremont have spent thousands of dollars trying to discourage the geese from settling at their local lake, Yparraguirre said. Tens of thousands of geese have made their permanent homes in Portland and Seattle as well as New Jersey, which now hosts an estimated 50,000 Canada geese.

“They may not be coming to Southern California as much, but they are finding other places where they’re happy enough to settle down,” Yparraguirre said.

To prevent the complete loss of the Valley’s geese, in 1994 the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks tilled and seeded a small portion of the Sepulveda Basin’s wildlife area.

But a small section of one park is not enough, said White. The geese, which are instinctively wary of predators, seek out large, open areas with good visibility.

“When cities and communities begin to contemplate development, they need to also factor in saving some open space for wildlife,” said White. “No thought has been given to the needs of wildlife and the ecosystems that existed in those areas before the developers came in.”

White expects the number of geese to continue to drop in the next few years unless more habitat area is made available.

“If you get a drop from 1,700 to 600 in four years and you know the only open space areas are under threat and will probably disappear if we don’t try to save them, then what you’re looking at is zero Canada geese into the Valley in a short period of time.”