Feeding frenzy

Boy, sometimes you just can't win. In Michigan City, officials banned the feeding of wildlife in public parks (including land adjacent to Lake Michigan) in order to cut down on the amount of bird droppings in the marina. The good news is that it seems to have worked -- droppings are down, so to speak. But:

The bad news is that the Canada geese have started eating the new dune grass planted near the Washington Park Marina boat launch ramp.

"It's an unintentional consequence of the anti-feeding ordinance," Frame said.

The Port Authority Board spent $20,000 this spring to have a Holland, Mich., company plant two strips of dune grass - a total of 80,000 plants - in an effort to keep down the amount of sand that blows into the marina's launch ramp area. Now it appears the park geese are using the grass barrier as a salad bar, nibbling off the grass tips.

So take a life lesson, as unfair as it seems. You can have less bird poop or you can have less sand in the launch area, but you can't have both. The Canada geese were known to be the culprits, by the way, because they "left tell-tale footprints in the sand that incriminated them." CSI Michigan City was on the job this time!