The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Canada Geese Takeover

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

The Canadian Wildlife Service reports that there are approximately seven million Canada geese across North America, making their presence more noticeable than ever. The Canada goose is often hailed as a national symbol for Canada. However, many Canadians and Americans have had frustrating encounters with Canada geese, from their loud calls to their tendency to congregate in urban areas. The Agenda, in partnership with Detroit PBS' Great Lakes Now, explores how we got here and what steps are being taken to manage the goose population. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you've been outside in North America lately, then it's likely that you run into Brontocanadensis, the Canada geese. But wait, are they Canada geese or Canadian geese? The answer to that question is Canada geese. They do not hold passports and they, you know what, they ignore international borders, but we refer to them as Canada goose. That's Matthew Oliskey, executive director of the Jack Miner Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Kingsville, Ontario. He's team Canada goose. And what about Jack Miner? You can probably guess how he felt.

Jack Miner loved the Canada goose for its unconditional devotion to its family and to its mate. And so, you know, it's really neat during nesting season to see that species sacrifice so much for its young and for its loved ones and for its flock. So there is that beauty of nature that can be observed if you take a second of your day to notice it. And it is not absent from my mind that Canada geese can certainly come with their own complexities, especially when we're talking about urban populations. Not everybody loves Canada geese the way that Jack Miner did.

I don't think that there are many people out there that have an undying love for the Canada goose. Across the border in Michigan, the state is changing the way it deals with nuisance geese. Relocation is out. Guess what's in? Jared Duquette is a human and wildlife interaction specialist with the Michigan DNR's wildlife division. Not only do you have lots of geese, but like you have that additive feces kind of mess, right? It's gross. Barbara Avers is a Michigan DNR waterfowl and wetland specialist.

Most of our urban areas in the state, I'd say that they're experiencing some sort of Canada goose conflicts. Some of the challenges we see with managing Canada geese, probably the biggest one is just how many are out there. The Canadian Wildlife Service estimates that there are at least 7 million Canada geese in North America.

In Michigan alone, there are about 281,000 geese, far more than the target population of 225,000. And when you have these larger goose populations locally in relation to the same place where you have larger human populations, that's where the conflicts occur. The problem is that humans and geese tend to like the same kinds of places, like lawns and waterfront parks and golf courses.

People and geese get together in those places and they don't always get along. A lot of people come with really poor experiences of engaging with the Canada goose. One big issue? Goose poop. Canada geese poop about every 12 minutes. And that adds up to a pound or two of poop every day from every bird. Those droppings can contain E. coli bacteria, which can make people sick or wash into the water and lead to beach closures.

And anyone who's ever been menaced by an angry goose which can make people sick or wash into the water and lead to beach closures. And anyone who's ever been menaced by an angry goose in a parking lot knows that they can be downright aggressive. Maybe you've seen videos on social media or even on the news like this story from WXYZ Detroit. A goose on the attack. The goose caught on camera and catching a student off guard. Look closely as the student tries defending himself, only to get accosted a second time.

You kind of see this exclusion kind of behavior going on, and not only amongst themselves, but with people. And that's where we get those conflicts sometimes. The aggression sometimes during that breeding season, that can be one of the conflicts that people have, just if a goose nest near a building let's say right near a business or something and you know people are trying to get in and out or an apartment building those geese can be pretty aggressive and kind of attack people. Of course we also have farmers. Geese can come in especially

when the crops are just emerging and you know geese can be eating those. Of course airport safety is another big one. A commercial aircraft, a US Airways flight from New York to Charlotte lands in the Hudson River in New York City and amazingly all the passengers got out alive. You might remember this news story from NBC Nightly News of Flight 1549 making an emergency landing in the Hudson River in 2009. Well according to the National Transportation Safety Board's accident report, that happened after both of the plane's engines ingested at least two Canada geese weighing about eight pounds each.

The report also says, quote, Canada geese are particularly hazardous to aviation because of their large size, flocking behavior, attraction to grazing sites at airports, and the year-round presence of their resident populations. But in a way, we have only ourselves to blame. Over the years, we've made North America into a pretty appealing place for geese. Maybe we would have a bit more patience for them.

If we understood that the reason that they're flocking to cities and hanging out beside us while we're trying to, you know, enjoy a moment with our family, picnicking in the grass. If we understood that they're there because geese love fresh cut grass. It's like candy to them. The spaces we've created, lawns, parks, golf courses, airports, they're basically goose paradise. So now what do we do? Like a lot of things, I'm a big believer in preventative medicine. And I think that's

the same thing in wildlife conservation a lot is we do have some tools out there where we try to prevent these things like feces from kind of adding up in areas that people want to be. I've been working with a few very urban municipalities here in Michigan. One municipality, they have a park that gets about 60,000 visitors a year, so pretty intensive, but they have lots of geese there. And they're like, what can we do at this little site? And so we're actually partnering right now to test like an autonomic laser that works.

We program it to work on various locations and it just runs itself off of solar power and geese hate lasers. So it's kind of cool, innovative way to do this. And we're seeing pretty good success at that little site. If there are no lasers handy, specially trained dogs can also drive geese away from a specific area. In Ontario, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is also employing a suite of techniques. This includes managing geese habitats by planting shrubs in areas where they gather, and controlling their population by removing eggs or even entire nests.

In late June, Canada geese undergo an annual molting phase where they lose their flight feathers, making it an ideal time for the TRCA to round the geese up and relocate them. But these days, there's a good reason to be cautious about moving geese around. Keep in mind that everyone is still dealing with and managing the avian flu epidemic. Avian flu or bird flu is a virus that usually spreads among birds but the highly pathogenic H5N1 subtype of the virus has infected not only birds, but also dairy cows, other mammals, and humans. Millions of chickens have been culled to control outbreaks, and experts worry that a mutation could allow the virus to spread between humans and cause a pandemic. Overpopulation of

Canada geese increases that risk as they can spread the virus to other animals. And that's why Michigan changed its policy from relocation to euthanasia. It's a real threat to our domestic poultry industry and also now we do have highly pathogenic avian influenza in some of our dairy herds. We don't want to be potentially increasing the risk of the spread of that virus by moving birds around the state, which means that birds that are rounded up do have to be killed. We're hoping many people will choose to try to get them processed and get the meat distributed to charitable organizations. And I do want to mention

why that's a big change and I want to make sure we talk about why that change is organizations. And I do want to mention why that's a big change. And I want to make sure we talk about why that change is happening. And really that relocation has just become unsustainable. With relocation off the table and no natural predators to control the population, it falls to us humans to do it ourselves. Hunting is that tool that we need.

And without that tool, we would have even more birds on the landscape, more conflicts to deal with. And so it really is. That's another part of it, too, is just understanding that role of hunting and how important it is to the management of our wildlife resources. Hunters are some of the greatest conservationists out there, some of the strongest advocates for habitat and wildlife conservation and restoration.

And the act of hunting a waterfowl and recovering bands and sharing that information with the scientific community is incredibly important, and it informs policy that is tied to migratory birds.