Canada Geese Cancel Migration For Third Straight Year, Say Ohio Is Basically Florida Now

COLUMBUS, OH — Citing a forecast high of 71 degrees for the first week of November, a flock of roughly 4,000 Canada geese announced Tuesday that it would once again skip its annual migration south, telling reporters that central Ohio "has everything Florida has except the traffic."

The decision, reached during a two-hour honking session in the parking lot of a suburban Kroger, is the third year in a row the flock has stayed put. Flock elder Gerald, a 14-year-old gander who has made the 900-mile trip to the Carolinas eleven times, said he no longer sees the point.

"I used to fly for six days straight to get to a retention pond outside Myrtle Beach," Gerald said, adjusting his position on a heated sidewalk outside a Panera. "Now I get the same retention pond, the same bread crusts, and I'm home in time for the Buckeyes game. You'd have to be a duck to keep doing that drive."

The flock has reportedly begun settling into the region for the long haul. Several pairs have signed what wildlife officials describe as "informal leases" on the fourth hole of a Dublin golf course, and a subcommittee of younger geese has started lobbying the city for a second decorative fountain.

Not everyone is pleased with the arrangement. Dana Pruitt, 52, who manages the office park the geese have occupied since September, said the birds have taken over the main lawn, the outdoor break tables, and, as of last Thursday, the CEO's reserved parking space.

"They were supposed to leave in October," Pruitt said. "I put a fake coyote out there. They've named it. They bring it leaves."

A study released this week by the Ohio State Institute for Avian Logistics found that 62 percent of the state's geese now describe migration as "something my parents did," while another 23 percent said they still fly south but only to Cincinnati. Lead researcher Dr. Howard Klemp called the findings "the least surprising thing I've ever been funded to discover."

"These birds looked at forty years of temperature data and changed their behavior accordingly," Klemp said. "That already puts them well ahead of the state legislature."

Florida tourism officials, alarmed by a 40 percent drop in seasonal goose arrivals, have launched an aggressive recruitment campaign, including free pond access, a complimentary loaf of sourdough for every flock of 50 or more, and a series of billboards along I-75 showing a goose in sunglasses. Gerald was unmoved.

"They keep sending us brochures," he said. "Their ponds have alligators in them. Our ponds have a guy named Steve who feeds us Cheez-Its. That's not a hard call."

The flock's younger members appear even less interested in travel. Several juveniles hatched in 2025 told reporters they had never seen the South and did not understand why anyone would want to, describing the concept of a seasonal 900-mile flight as "honestly kind of a red flag."

At press time, the flock had been spotted flying in a perfect V formation toward Michigan, having heard it was "actually pretty nice up there now, too."