By Sherry conohan
Staff Writer
JERRY WOLKOWITZ Many communities have adopted ordinances prohibiting the feeding of geese in an attempt to reduce their number gathering in public places such as parks and sports fields.
EATONTOWN — Don’t feed the geese in Wampum Park. It will cost you if you do.
The Borough Council unanimously passed an ordinance last month, making it illegal to feed the geese in and around Wampum Park, and fixing a penalty of $1,250 and up to 90 days in jail for violators or a sentence to a period of community service not to exceed 90 days, or any combination of those penalties.
After listening to two women who objected to the ban on feeding the geese, Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo said the council had to take the action because the birds had become a health hazard, particularly to children, with the droppings they leave.
"The fact is, we have a problem with the geese, and the dropping problem has become severe," he said.
Sarah Breslow of Lake Drive argued, however, that the borough ought to slow down and consider alternatives that aren’t so "arrogant as to remove God’s creatures" who naturally inhabit the lake. She said she didn’t want to see children denied the joy of feeding the geese.
"Have we lost sight of who this park should serve?" she asked.
"It isn’t merely a forum for the municipal band or a place to make political speeches on event days," she said. "It’s a place for kids and adults to fish, to eat lunch on a park bench and enjoy a natural habitat. It’s a place where we marvel at seeing turtles, frogs, fish, goslings, ducks and even muskrats.
"It’s a place where my mail carrier comes on his daily break to feed the ducks and geese," she added. "The joy that is shown in the faces of children feeding the geese is all the encouragement you should need to maintain this natural habitat. If you want a sterile environment, you may as well put in Astroturf."
Breslow also objected to the planned removal of the white geese, which she said have inhabited Wampum Lake for longer than the 20 years she has lived by it.
Tarantolo said the white geese are going to be relocated to a farm in the western part of the county, while the Canada geese are chased out. The white geese will be brought back when the Canada geese are gone, the mayor said.
Linda Mahland of Locust Avenue expressed concern the geese were being sent scurrying just as the hunting season on the Navesink River opens in two weeks.
"We’re sending them off to slaughter over the Navesink," she said in objecting to the ordinance. "It’s a shame to send them off to the Navesink to be killed."
Mahland said she used to go over to Fort Monmouth to feed the geese.
"They are very smart," she said. "They got to know my truck."
Councilman Theodore F. Lewis Jr. said the problem is they were migratory birds until so many people were feeding them that they ceased being migratory.
Lewis said the borough Environmental Commission is very supportive of getting the geese under control.
"They’re New Jersey geese, and we’re stuck with them, and we have to get them back into a [migratory] pattern," he said.