Hey, it's Curious City producer Jason Mark. Where I live in the northern suburbs, there's a lot of

wildlife. When I walked a dog, we're always running across the usual squirrels and rabbits and skunks.

Plus, there's a lot of deer. And I've been seeing more and more coyotes and foxes lately.

And then, of course, there's the geese. Any bit of open space, the playing

fields next to schools, around those retention ponds and office parks, and they're not just in

the burbs, it's the city too. If there's a decent size patch of grass, you're going to find geese.

A few years ago, reporter Monica Ang met up with question asker Victoria Long.

Victoria wanted to show us the huge flocks of geese spread across Washington Park on the city's south side.

Sometimes you have to clap your hands to get them to move, but they are so used to people.

And I still notice people coming out to feed them,

which they really don't mean.

She told me that since the pandemic,

she's been taking a lot of walks out here.

I walked a lot on the north end of Washington Park.

It has a great path around it. And there was always

lots of geese. And I was always wondering, you know, what a mess they made. Because if you're

walking on the paths... We walked around. I got goose poop all over my shoes. And she asked,

is there any plan to manage the numbers? They seem like they've overridden both the

north and the south sections of Washington Park and from what I hear other parks in the city.

Victoria's right. The goose population has exploded in Chicago and other Midwestern cities in recent decades.

They're a lot more spread out now than they normally are.

But they're more than just a nuisance.

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