No More Bread for Dellinger Park's Ducks, Geese

For years, the ducks and geese at the pond at Dellinger Park have been eating bread and other "human" snacks offered by visitors. 

That has changed for 2013, city of Cartersville Parks and Recreation Director Greg Anderson told Patch.

Feeding waterfowl in public parks leads to several negative consequences, including overcrowding, habitat degredation, disease, dietary and nutritional problems; delayed migration and habituation, a Wildlife Center of Virginia study found. It leads to public health problems, too, such as pollution from animal waste due to overcrowding, according to the Duck Rescue Network. 

Those types of problems have already started at Dellinger's pond.

"For all those years, it's been posted—Do Not Feed the Wildlife—but we've always looked the other way because of the enjoyment of the families" and the visitors who feel they need to provide with ducks and geese with some type of nourishment, Anderson said.

With two new feeding machines at the pond, visitors now may invest 25 cents for a handful of appropriate food for duck, geese and fish. The feeders don't cost the city; instead it gets 50 percent of the profits. The company that installed the machines gets the other 50 percent.

But Anderson said the profits—so far a total of about $900 for the city—are secondary.

With the feeders—the first installed in December and the second added more recently due to heavier demand—officials are hoping to clean up the pond by reducing the number of ducks and limiting when federally-protected Canadian Geese come into the area and how long they stay, Anderson told Patch.

The city got its first $150 in feeder profits and then a second check for $750, all of which will be put in the general fund to help cover operating expenses, according to Anderson.

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