Meat from the more than 1,600 Canada geese culled from Denver’s parks was given to Metro Caring, which is now offering it for free to patrons of its fresh food market.
Local and federal officials rounded up and killed the Canada geese from four parks — Sloan’s Lake, Washington Park, City Park and Garfield Lake Park — in recent weeks as part of a controversial program to trim the bird’s Denver population.
The round-up drew criticism from animal rights advocates, including those who held a protest in Washington Park and signed a petition that asked the city to stop killing the birds.
In total, 1,662 geese were collected and killed from the parks and the meat was given to those in need, officials have said.
Metro Caring, which bills itself as an anti-hunger organization, received an undisclosed portion of grounded goose meat on Monday and is distributing it from its meat counter. On Friday, the organization will offer tastings of goose chili, along with shepherd’s pie and South African dishes made with the ingredient, for patrons to sample, said Tommy Crosby, food access team lead.
“Seeing that we are always looking for sources of free protein in our market, we saw this as an opportunity to receive a free source of protein,” he said, adding that Metro Caring was not involved in the killing of the geese.
On Thursday, Crosby ate goose for the first time, sampling chili that a volunteer made. The dish had the same texture as beef chili and didn’t taste gamey, he said.
“It was incredibly tasty,” Crosby said.
