PALO ALTO -- Munching on a diet of such fast-food delights as potato chips, donuts, cakes and burritos, Palo Alto's once-migrating Canada geese have been grounded by bulging waistlines, according to wildlife officials.

Baylands Open Space Preserve park ranger Joe Collie said good natured individuals were overfeeding the flock.

"They can fly, but it takes them an extra run to get off the ground," Collie told KTVU. "I've seen cakes put out for them, burritos -- stuff that's just isn't natural for these birds."

The ranger said the diet had turned many of the birds into nature's version of couch potatoes.

"Basically, they are being fed her so they don't want to leave," he said. "Their diet results in them getting fat."

Rangers have tried to out on end to the fattening buffet by posting signs, but that hasn't stopped the feeding.

"We tried for the first three weeks to come out and educate," he said. "We found that we could do that seven days a week, eight hours a day and people just don’t comprehend."

Meanwhile, city officials say they are facing a Catch-22 when it comes to the birds. Families have been coming down to the area for decades and their children have enjoyed feeding the wild fowl that includes the geese, ducks and other birds.

"Feeding birds at the duck pond has been a tradition ever since it was built as a saltwater swimming pool in the 1930s," Greg Betts, the city's open space division manager, told the San Jose Mercury News. "You don't necessarily need to feed them bagels, doughnuts and heavily processed grains."

The birds are lounging not only in the preserve, but they have also become a problem for the nearby Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course and Palo Alto Airport.

Roughly once every other month, David Harvey, a shop attendant at the golf course's pro shop, told the newspaper that a golf ball beans a goose, prompting yet another call to the local humane society.

"If you did something drastic like shooting them, people would get upset," he said.