A secret cull of Canada geese sparked outrage among members at one of the UK’s most exclusive tennis clubs.<\/p>\n
According to The Times, eight geese\u2014including goslings\u2014were shot by marksmen at St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club in Weybridge, Surrey, on July 16.<\/p>\n
Gunshots were heard around 5.25am.<\/p>\n
A long-standing club member told The Times: “The members have always liked the geese.<\/p>\n
“It is sometimes a bit annoying because they amble on to the courts and leave their poo.<\/p>\n
“But that does not mean they had to be shot.<\/p>\n
“It’s a private estate and the residents are concerned about a firearm being brought in without any warning.”<\/p>\n
A secret cull of Canada geese at a Surrey tennis club has sparked anger among some members (Image: Contributed)<\/p>\n
Canada geese can produce up to 2lbs (0.9kg) of droppings per day, leaving club management struggling to keep the 34 tennis courts clean.<\/p>\n
Miles Hill, chief executive of the club, said: “We fully understand that some members and estate residents have been upset by what occurred.<\/p>\n
“This was not a decision the club wished to take, nor one that was taken lightly.<\/p>\n
“It followed many months of attempting to manage a growing resident population of Canada geese through enhanced cleaning and non-lethal measures.<\/p>\n
READ MORE:<\/p>\n
“The decision was taken primarily on the grounds of public health and public safety.”<\/p>\n
Some members claimed they were told told the birds had been relocated to Claremont Landscape Garden, about two miles away.<\/p>\n
Mr Hill said the club deliberately kept the cull confidential to carry it out ‘safely and effectively’ and to ‘avoid causing unnecessary concern, distress or alarm over what was a lawful operational matter undertaken in the interests of public health and safety’.<\/p>\n
He added that the club is reviewing its wildlife management strategy, with plans to focus on habitat changes, humane deterrence, and reserving lethal measures as an ‘absolute last resort’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A secret cull of Canada geese sparked outrage among members at one of the UK’s most exclusive tennis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17628,17942,17941,17944,17629,17940,28,17943,1568,17939],"class_list":["post-48335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-canada-geese","tag-club-management","tag-cull","tag-miles-hill","tag-population-of-canada","tag-surrey","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-clubs","tag-tennis-courts","tag-weybridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}