The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating what killed nearly a dozen geese recently in Syracuse’s Woodland Reservoir.
On Sunday, Dec. 3, the City of Syracuse Water Department removed 11 dead geese from the reservoir, a city spokesperson said.
Dozens of healthy geese were also swimming in the reservoir at the time, DEC said. A DEC police officer sent eight of the dead geese to Cornell University’s Wildlife Health Lab for analysis.
Krysten Schuler, the lab’s co-director, says she’s screening the dead geese for H5N1, a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, or avian flu as it’s commonly known.
Results are expected later this week.
Woodland Reservoir, located in the city’s Strathmore neighborhood, is a primary source of the city’s drinking water. Residents should have “no concerns” and the water remains safe for drinking, the spokesperson said. There’s no need to boil water, and routine weekly sampling of the water supply is ongoing.
Gudrun Rudd, who lives in Syracuse's Strathmore neighborhood, recently photographed this dead Canada goose floating in Hiawatha Lake, days after 11 dead geese were found floating in nearby Woodland Reservoir.Gudrun Rudd
Strathmore resident Sara Berg first saw dead geese floating in Woodland Reservoir when she went for a walk on the morning of Dec. 2.
“I saw a goose with its head in the water, which is a little odd,” said Berg, who then noticed a group of five or six dead geese floating in the northwest corner of the reservoir.
Berg, who has lived across the street from the reservoir for eight years and walks there often, has never noticed dead waterfowl in the water before this past weekend.
A city spokesperson says that a few dead geese are removed from the reservoir every year.
Another Strathmore resident, Gudrun Rudd, noticed on Sunday a goose swimming listlessly on Hiawatha Lake, which is located in Onondaga Park, a few blocks from Woodland Reservoir.
When Rudd returned to the park on Tuesday to walk her dog, the goose was dead. She reported it to DEC’s regional office. As of Wednesday evening, the dead goose was still floating in the lake, Rudd said.
Rudd is concerned that if waterfowl are being sickened by HPAI, the deadly virus might spread to other birds.
“We’ve got some great wildlife” in the park, she said, “that would be heart breaking.”
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Steve Featherstone covers the outdoors for The Post-Standard, syracuse.com and NYUP.com. Contact him at sfeatherstone@syracuse.com or on Twitter @featheroutdoors. You can also follow along with all of our outdoors content at newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/ or follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/upstatenyoutdoors.