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Oh Canada, Curb Your Goose

SPIDER RAPIDS -- The Spider Rapids Country Club has ignited an international incident by filing suit against the United States' northern neighbor, Canada, for damages and losses due to the presence of undocumented migratory waterfowl from the so-called "Great White North."

"This year we were literally invaded by over a thousand Canadian Geese, depositing almost two tons of droppings per day, totally overwhelming our groundskeepers," said Club Pro Byron "Plugs" McCoy. "You couldn't walk ten feet without stepping on a Canuckian hockey puck. Our tee time bookings dropped by over fifty percent."

According to the club's attorney, Steve Dallas, the course was also sued seventeen times during the season for injuries suffered when linksters slipped on goose droppings and has seen its liability insurance premiums soar.

In the past, McCoy attempted to control the goose population with controlled hunts, but abandoned that tactic when protestors picketed the driving range, tee boxes and putting greens chanting "No Blood for Golf" or "Hackers Lied and Species Died."

Calabash County Department of Natural Resources Ranger Kimberly Hanks confirmed that the course's resident flock had, for years, numbered only two or three hundred birds and that this season's five-fold increase in numbers could only be attributable to migratory birds.

"While federal law allows the hunting of resident geese," explained Hanks, "Migratory Canada geese cannot be hunted."

Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Monte Solberg, denied his country's liability citing the provisions of the North American Free Trade Act, as well as "common sense," and has appealed to the U.S. State Department to intervene.

"This is a silly, silly lawsuit," Solberg wrote disdainfully in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, released to the New York Times, "brought aboot by silly people, who play a silly, silly so-called sport."

Solberg's epistolary razzberry in defense of his country's namesake wildlife went on to claim that the injuries suffered by fallen hackers were due either to the usual "big-footed clumsiness" of drunken Americans or to the banning of metal spikes on the course.

The United States Golf Association declined comment, but said it is watching developments in the case closely.





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