Cow Pinders and Goose Addlers

Cows in the foreground, perpendicular Gothic in the background, punting on the river, real ale in the pubs: Cambridge has always seemed my kind of place. And now I learn from the New York Times that that City of Cambridge has an official known as the “pinder” who keeps the cows of the community from getting into trouble with either town or gown (“Parks Give Cambridge a Rural Vibe. ‘But Cows Do It Better,’” July 16, 2018).
 
The closest my American university had to a cow pinder was a fellow who might have been called the goose addler. The campus was overrun by Canada geese who had become too lazy to migrate and who made the campus less pleasant in ways best not described. I always thought the solution to the problem was simply to wring their necks and send the carcasses to food services—fresh goose is probably more nutritional than mystery meat—and the feathers to the art department. That was, however, considered inhumane. Nor could we harvest the eggs and reduce the future goose population by frying them—though it would have been a continuing source of protein, since a goose who finds her nest empty responds by laying another egg. Instead, we paid someone to sneak up on nests while the anserine mothers were off hissing at students trying to get to class. His job was to shake the eggs until they were thoroughly addled, replace them in the nest, and make his getaway. The returning goose would then brood upon eggs that would never hatch and in the process be transformed from a simple annoyance into a symbol of the devoted teacher of remedial English.