At the Environmental and Natural Assets Committee meeting last Friday you stated rather unequivocally that geese killed to reduce populations around the pond are never sent to food banks for distribution. You said that was a hoax or some other descriptive word.

I just called Mike Hooks at the Maryland Food Bank in Salisbury and he confirmed the Food Bank did indeed receive the geese killed in Ocean Pines a few years ago as a part of the program administered by the Department of Agriculture.

Killing the 300 or so geese and the subsequent distribution of the cleaned and packaged geese via the Maryland Food Bank was the environmentally friendly thing to do; it fed humans, and it diminished greatly the goose poop that users of the pond had to wade through.

The resident goose population around the pond has increased since then, but it is not yet at a level requiring another killing of the flock. If the goose poop becomes totally obnoxious as before, the culling of the birds via killing some and distributing to the needy via the Maryland Food Bank is an option that should not be arbitrarily ignored by OPA.