Few people were more enraged than Voices for Animals activists when Allegheny County had 272 geese killed in a predawn roundup this month at North Park Lake.

Few said they were more torn about the decision than Andrew Baechle, the Allegheny County parks director who had assured the group in May that no geese would be killed in 2007.

And few expressed more relief than Robert Powers, McCandless council president who's counting on fewer geese soiling the ball fields by his town hall on Grubbs Road and fewer soccer moms complaining as they point to the mess on their kids' heads when the youngsters fall on the field.

"We've been going round and round on this in McCandless for years," he said. "We're just frustrated with the damn geese."

For years, county parks and McCandless officials have wrestled with the burgeoning Canada geese population at North Park, which Mr. Powers said takes up about a fifth of the town's 16-plus square miles. Daily counts show roughly 600 of the birds hang out in the park, he said.

Having tried various nonlethal means of controlling the problem, county officials this season hinted at, rejected and then went ahead with the roundup.

The uncertainty has left many ill at ease and wondering: If the geese come back, what then?

"I struggled with this," said Mr. Baechle, who considers himself a naturalist at heart. "It was a very polarizing situation. If we do a comprehensive nonlethal program, I'm hoping we never have to harvest again."

As much as anything, animal rights activists dislike the way bureaucrats like Mr. Baechle and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato use words such as "harvest" as a euphemism for gassing and meat-plant processing.

They also resent that they weren't told what the county was going to do, a point they made Sunday when they staged a protest at Mr. Onorato's church, St. Cyril of Alexandria, in Brighton Heights.

"We are outraged that this would happen unbeknownst to any of us," said Rebecca Reid, of Voices for Animals. "We thought we had an agreement in May with Mr. Baechle and the county."

Mr. Baechle said the roundup was conducted in the early morning because that's when the birds are most docile. The geese were gathered with the help of U.S. Department of Agriculture workers, who went out on the lake in two kayaks and used laser beams to guide the geese to shore. There, the birds were fenced, caged and shipped to a meat plant in Latrobe, Mr. Baechle said.

The geese were put on ice for several days and then, if proven safe, the meat was to be donated to local food banks.

Mr. Baechle said he understood why the group might mistrust him after what he told them in May. But he said the county was committed to a two-year, nonlethal program and still is.

It's just that in the past two months the problem has become far worse than he had anticipated, a sentiment he said was shared by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In McCandless, the problem has been significant enough to warrant a link dedicated to Canada geese on the town's Web site, right between Bulletin Board and Directions to Town Hall.

The town asks residents not to feed, pet "or do anything to encourage them to stay."

For every visitor who enjoys the birds' natural beauty, there's another who's fed up with their droppings and threat of disease.

County officials want a comprehensive program that draws volunteers from McCandless, Voices for Animals and elsewhere to try a pre-emptive strike. The ball fields near the McCandless town hall, in fact, are one of six areas outside of the park that Mr. Baechle wants to target next spring.

One of the nonlethal methods of controlling the geese is egg addling, which involves finding the nests and covering the gosling eggs with cooking oil. That prevents them from hatching.

Voices for Animals isn't thrilled with egg addling, said coordinator Peter McKosky of the North Side. But the group supports it in the spirit of compromise.

In addition, Mr Baechle wants to look into various harassment techniques, using everything from border collies to fireworks.

It sounds good on paper, but Mr. Powers has his doubts. The town has tried egg addling in the wetlands near the ball fields, but there's always more nests than meet the eye.

The town has tried barricading the fields with orange plastic-grid fencing. Even Mr. Powers had to laugh at how well that worked this spring.

"Here's the mother with five little ones. She walks up and down ... she sticks her beak in, lifts [the fence] up and lets them through. They're not stupid. I told my roads superintendent. I can't believe she did that," he said.

"There are too many geese in the park," said Jan Rea, a county councilwoman who has often heard Mr. Powers' concerns. She gave measured support to the surprise roundup.

"I live very close to North Park and walk the lake," she said. "I worry all the time [that] there's children in the park who are not aware that the geese leave a lot of droppings and their parents aren't aware what they're playing in."

"Somebody had to do something. I support it because of that, though I'm not so sure of the way they did it. Was that the only way to control them? I don't know."