The neighborhood I moved to in my preteen years had an ornamental pond. When we first moved in I was about 11-12, and the pond was awesome. It was stocked with small fish, and everyone believed in catch and release, so there was always something to catch.
As time moved on, less and less people fished the pond. It just became the pretty jewel at the front of our middle class suburb. People still hung out there, but only on the little concrete garden benches. They would sit there, watch and feed the 3 ducks that occupied the pond. It was actually pretty serene, considering it was right next to the main entrance of the neighborhood.
Some more time goes by, it's the mid 90's, and some migrating Canada geese notice our nice little pond, our ducks, and the pile of corn left for them cause the neighborhood loves their ducks.
All is well at first, maybe 10 Geese decide they want to spend the summer with us. The neighborhood is thrilled, the pond is new again thanks to our visitors. It becomes a hangout spot for younger kids, grandparents, and their grandchildren.
Winter comes, most of the 10 geese leave, all are sad because the pond looks empty without them, will they be back?
Sure enough, the Geese come back in spring, and they bring some friends. The neighborhood rejoices, for now we have 20 Geese, YAY!
Again, winter comes, most leave, spring. Geese come back, but they bring more friends. This time there's about 30, seems like a lot, but people were ok with it at first.
About a month goes by, more Geese show up regularly. We're up to about 50, it continues, by the time fall comes there were probably 200 of those things.
Next spring, our tiny little pond is now an official rest stop on the Canada geese migratory circuit. Within a week of the first handful of geese, there's 50, and they keep coming. They take over the pond, and every yard within a quarter mile of it. At this point these fuckers are in charge, it's their neighborhood, they run this bitch.
It was so bad that you had to leave for school 15min earlier than usual because the geese were waking up at that time and crossing the road. It was a stampede of angry feathered cattle, and they didn't give a fuck what you had going on. If they got tired mid road crossing, then fuck you car, I'm gonna lay back down right in the middle of the road.
I'm sure many of you can't understand why people put up with this, and rightly so. Let me tell you why, we had no choice in the matter. At this time in history, Canada geese were a protected species. If you fucked with a goose, you could get up to $5000 fine. We couldn't chase em off because they were starting to nest at the pond, and conversationalists love that shit. They start to monitor the population, not full blown like they would monitor a wetland population, but they paid enough attention to make it difficult for any anti-goose vigilante group to be effective.
This went on for years.... Years of geese terrorizing pedestrians, attacking cars, precision V-formation aerial shit bombings. Seriously, you damn near needed an umbrella to walk down the street.
And then one day, gone... I guess they felt they used up all resources, and could rape the land no more.
They left behind a scarred land. Front yards unable to grow grass, a once ideal little pond with ornamental grasses and cattails now nothing but murky shit water, and mud shoreline. Even the street that ran by the pond had been stained by years of goose shit.
Now some 15-20 years later, the pond is once again the well groomed jewel of the neighborhood. I've since left, but my parents, early into their golden years remain, and I fear for them.
It's only a matter of time until goosepocalypse falls upon that ideal little suburb once more.