2017-10-30
It's open season for Canada geese in Illinois from mid-October to mid-January. Unfortunately for hunters, Canada geese are finding a new way to stay out of the line of fire. Rather than being "sitting ducks" in a rural pond, they're setting up residence in the city.
University of Illinois ornithologist Mike Ward says he and a team of researchers conducted a recent study to try to find out why there were so many Canada geese in Chicago in the winter. "We thought the geese would fly to forage on nearby agricultural fields during the day, then fly back to the city to roost, but that wasn't the case. What we learned is that they weren't going to the city for food, they were going there because there were no hunters," he explains.