Moncton's quest for success reining in Canada geese leads to goose eggs

After trying everything from remote-controlled hazing vehicles to strobing sleep-deprivation devices, a Moncton functionary says the urban center has eventually landed on something that is workings to verify the population of Canada geese in Centennial Park.

The city is using a practice called addling to prevent goose eggs from hatching, said Dan Hicks, Moncton’s park director.

“Of all the things we tried, the vegetation buffers and the addling of the eggs have been by far the most successful,” said Hicks, dubbed by close family as “the official goose herder of the city of Moncton.”

“We don't have two geese becoming 10 geese becoming 30 geese. I think we had one gosling at Centennial Park in the last two to three years.”

This is the time of year when human visitors to the 94-hectare Centennial Park, west of the downtown, have perennially run afoul of the iconic Canadian waterfowl.

Like humans, geese appreciate the park grounds for their greenspace and water features," Hicks said.

“We have these large, vast lawns that are mowed down towards the water's edge. … We see a nice, lovely picnic site and geese see a really nice picnic site too.”

Water is a safe space for geese, he said, so their preferred nest sites have a quick escape route to water for their young.

“They get agitated if you get near. And when they have their young, they're very protective.”

One of the first things tried to discourage geese from nesting at the park was fencing around the water, Hicks said.

That worked to a degree, he said, noting that these days, they use barriers made of vegetation instead fencing.

But issues persisted.

“The trouble is the conflict with people. People get concerned if they're being aggressive towards them. And also, the mess they leave behind can be quite, quite dramatic.”

In places, the concentration of goose excrement — or “poops per square foot,” as Hicks measures it — was so high you could barely see the pavement, Hicks said.

So they tried other contraptions.

There were the flashing strobe lights called Away With Geese.

“The theory is it's kind of like a disco party all night. You know the Eat at Joe’s sign blinking in your window.”

These were installed in the water to blink at goose at eye level, purportedly deprive the birds of a good night’s sleep and prompt them to take off to other habitat.

The geese didn’t seem to care.

“They slept right beside these, strobe lights on,” Hicks said.

There was also the radio-controlled Goosinator, something like an amphibious toy car.

“It scoots along the grass … but then it can also float, and you can just literally remote-control chase the geese away.” 

The trouble was, the geese didn’t fly far, and they came right back, Hicks said.

“Those interventions had minimal impact.”

So the city applied to the federal government for a special permit for addling, or damaging goose eggs.

This is the city’s third year getting one, Hicks said.

Spring is egg-laying time, so addling is to take place in Centennial Park starting next week, on one morning a week during June. The permit allows the city to damage 100 eggs.

A nuisance wildlife control specialist has been hired for the job, which calls for some expertise. Hicks drew a comparison to bullfighting.

“I haven't seen them with red capes or anything,” he said, but “trying to scoop one off a nest to get at the eggs would probably not end well.”

Timing is key, he said.

The eggs have to be treated quickly while the goose is away from its nest feeding. And a bird usually won’t go far. 

Addling methods include shaking eggs or puncturing them, but the method used in Moncton is oiling, Hicks said.

By coating goose eggs with corn oil, embryos are essentially deprived of oxygen so they don’t develop, he explained.

After they’re coated, the eggs are left in the nest so that the goose keeps waiting for them to hatch as opposed to moving and laying another clutch, said Hicks.

Besides keeping the number of geese in the park “relatively static,” addling has also helped cut down on conflicts between the public and aggressive adult geese, he said.

Without young to protect, “they just don't have any reason to be angry.”

There are still goose droppings, but the quantity has not dramatically increased, Hicks said.

“It's been basically steady.”

Addling isn’t a new thing, said Ted Barney, a waterfowl biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service’s Atlantic region, based in Sackville.

It’s been used in goose-population control for many years, he said.

The wildlife service, a branch of the federal Environment Department, has issued a few other “damage or danger” permits for addling in New Brunswick, including permits to provincial agencies to deal with risks to vehicle traffic and to some golf courses, he said.

A permit is required because geese are protected under the Migratory Birds Convention Act.

It specifies the location and limits the number of nests and eggs that may be damaged, noted Hicks.

Permits to destroy eggs are only issued to people who own, lease or manage the parcel of land where the damage is occurring, the regulations say.

Every case is unique, said Barney, but the wildlife service first promotes ways to “passively encourage geese to go elsewhere.”

Among his top suggestions are to not build islands in landscaped ponds and to remove old muskrat houses, which are essentially big mounds of cattails.

“Geese really like those,” he said, because the birds can swim right up to them. And they feel safe being slightly elevated.

Any destruction of nests should happen outside breeding season, Barney said.

If the geese come back the next spring to find the spot altered they might move on, he said.

The Canadian Wildlife Service has a handbook on ways to manage Canada geese, such as making noise or setting up flags or sprinklers. 

A damage permit is a last resort if these things don’t work, Barney said.

Reporter

Jennifer Sweet has been telling the stories of New Brunswickers for over 20 years. She is originally from Bathurst, got her journalism degree from Carleton University and is based in Fredericton. She can be reached at 451-4176 or jennifer.sweet@cbc.ca.

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