Take a gander at Jersey City’s newest residents.
Folks in Chilltown have been going gaga over a goodly gaggle of some 60 Canada geese.
People have been sharing pictures and video of the waddling water fowl who’ve been on a single-file tour of the city’s downtown.
The eight adults and more than 55 fluffy goslings have been spotted at all hours, slowly strutting across the streets and sidewalks of Jersey Avenue, Thomas Gangemi Drive, Newark Avenue, River Drive and Second Street.
They’ve also been spotted outside the Newport Centre Mall, which is situated not far from the Hudson River.
Recently, entire intersections have gladly come to a standstill to permit the dozens of geese to pass through.
“That’s so many,” laughed a man who filmed the geese outside Dirty Hippie Studios last week.
A woman passing by commented, “That is so cute,” to which the man replied, “It’s a great migration!”
Lisa Levinson, director of the National Goose Protection Coalition at In Defense of Animals, told The Post seeing this many geese together isn’t all that unusual.
In fact, geese mate for life, and often raise their young in groups known as “gang broods,” making geese among “the most family-oriented birds,” she said.
They even have no problem adopting abandoned or orphaned goslings.
“What you might be seeing [in Jersey City] is an extended family,” said Levinson.
Added Levinson: “I applaud the people of Jersey City for appreciating them and giving these geese the right of way when they’re out there, walking with their families.”
While reputed to have aggressive dispositions, Levinson said that’s a myth.
“When people talk about geese as not friendly or aggressive, it’s usually at the time of year when they are protecting their young, like any human mom would,” she said.
Paul Curtis, an urban wildlife expert at Cornell University, told The Post it is rare to see such a large group of geese “in such visible areas on public streets,” and estimated “there are at least a dozen family groups of geese in that large flock” seen in Jersey City, “walking from wherever the young were hatched at their nests — probably a pond nearby — to a favored molting area.”
The geese will likely stick around downtown Jersey City until late next month, and return next spring.
“Geese come back to the same locations to nest and molt year-after-year,” Curtis noted. “Once the birds can fly [again], it is much easier to avoid predators, and geese family groups will start to leave the molting area or pond.”
