Goose Crossing on Clairmont Road
Decatur Metro | July 21, 2011SJVRS writes in…
I drive to work every day on Clairmont and pass the VA Hospital where there are sometimes a bunch of geese on the side of the road. Sometimes in the road.
Today I saw one that must have been hit by a car. There is no sign posted (that I have seen) that alerts drivers to go careful around there as there may be geese crossing in the road. Do you know if there is any way to relocate this group to a new home – away from such a busy road?
I’m think it has something to do with that pond between the two apartment complexes, no? (Here’s the Streeview of what I’m referencing)
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Aren’t the geese squatters, not residents? My impression from the paths and grounds over at the Clairemont Retirement homes across from the VA and Highland Lakes apartments is that the geese make walking there more difficult and messy. A geese crossing seems a bit much unless collisions with geese have been a hazard to drivers like deer collisions are, hence deer crossings. Deer crossing signs are more for the protection of drivers than the deer. We don’t protect the squirrels or other rodents who get regularly smashed when they do not scamper out of the way of cars.
While hitting a goose wouldn’t be as dangerous as hitting a deer, it’s not like hitting a squirrel, either. These are pretty big animals. I don’t think it’d do a lot of damage to a car, but it may result in erratic steering due to the surprise.
From what I’ve seen, though, the real danger is in how people react to seeing a stream of geese waddling across the road. Given the speeds that people carry down that hill, someone slowing for the geese (and everyone who sees them slows down – maybe even to the speed limit [!]), may cause a disruption.
Very true. I encountered this just the other day, further up Clairmont near the Sam’s Club. A mother goose was crossing (at the crosswalk!) with her goslings. I almost got rear-ended as I and the driver in front of me slowed down to allow the geese to cross.
Make way for goslings! As a real fan of Robert McClosky, I am not going to fault anyone for stopping for a string of little goslings. But I have never found geese all that likable. The white more domesticated kind go right up to children and honk them over and the Canadian squatters breed elsewhere, I think, and are downright aggessive. I actually had to run away from some that my children were trying to feed in Lullwater Park.
I’m actually terrified of geese, as I’ve had many a run-in with aggressive geese, the Lullwater geese included. There used to be a scary pack of geese that lived down by the lake at Decatur Cemetery and were verrrry territorial. I was enjoying a quiet walk one day when I turned my head slightly and saw a goose flying straight at me, eye level, with a murderous gleam in its eye. I ducked and ran like hell!
So I don’t really like ‘em either, but I also don’t want to run ‘em over!
And those goslings were pretty cute….
Squatters vs residents: stipulate either, but how does that solve the problem?
My wife and I had this very same conversation this morning after seeing the dead goose. Something as simple as a goose crossing sign would be nice.
At that same location, we recently witnessed traffic stopped in all lanes by a dozen or so geese crossing the road in a single-file line. Quite a sight to behold, let me tell you.
Given that this stretch of Clairmont is treated like the Trans-Atlanta Diagonal Interstate, it’s a miracle that people make it across in the crosswalks at the lights, never mind geese walking willy nilly. Cars who run the red or jump the green and won’t let people cross will let geese meander by?
Those geese don’t like to be told what to do. If you put up a sign, they’ll start crossing somewhere else just out of spite.
+1
Evolution in Action – the geese that figure out how to not get run over continue breeding and you get geese that know not to mess with cars. The others – out the pool! Gene pool that is…
I like the geese, I don’t like the speeders, that’s where I’m at.
+1
The company I work for owns a building where in the budget there is a line item titled “Swan Maintenance.” It is essentially the costs involved to keep a swan on the property that chases the geese away. There’s a cost of feeding it and where to keep it in winter time.
In case anyone is still looking for a Decatur mascot…
Samson Swan: Goose Chaser.