The Smelt Bay Goose Hunt

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - On Monday, November 6, Max Thaysen and Travis Powiak posted a notice on the Tideline. They would be hunting Canada geese at Smelt Bay and Hollyhock Beach, between 12 and 3 PM, on Thursday. 

"I like eating goose for a variety of reasons, including wanting to have the most ethical and environmentally responsible diet that I possibly can," Max explained.

However, there was a problem.  

Max Thaysen: "Geese like to spend time in many of the same places that humans like to spend time.  There can be some issues around getting access to the geese, and working around the humans."

"So, me and a friend of mine, Travis, have come up with a plan where we could let the community know that there's some hunting planned in a restricted time period. People can choose to go elsewhere if they don't want to see or hear that kind of thing, or if they have dogs who are sensitive to loud noises. We plan to put up some signs to also help people know what's going on."

"The world is a very complicated place  and probably anytime we operate by simple rules like ‘eating meat is bad for the environment,’  we might lose some nuance and some details. I think in this case, that's very much true."

"There is pretty much no way of eating that has zero impact."

"So to the extent that you can, make the best decisions based on where you are and what you have access to. I think that it quite often includes eating meat. In this case it's an invasive species. It's having an impact. So any amount of invasive species meat  consumption that offsets any other food, even vegetarian food, has actually, in my opinion, a much lower impact than the alternatives."