A honking pile of poop

In California, downtown Oakland's bucolic nature reserve has such a serious overpopulation of Canada geese -- which drop about a ton of poop a week on the 122-acre park -- that the city is considering introducing dogs to herd the geese into fenced enclosures, buying a goose poop Zamboni and spraying the goose eggs with mineral oil to prevent them from hatching.

"No one's talking about shooting the geese -- we don't need more gunshots in Oakland," said Jennie Gerard, chief of staff to Oakland City Councilwoman Pat Kernighan. "But people cannot lie down on the lawn because there's so much poop. It's an aesthetic issue. It's gross."

They're so well adapted to city living that their population throughout the U.S. is expected to double by 2010, from 220,000 to nearly half a million, according to Oakland's Canada Goose Management Study.