The Current - The Goosinator chasing away bothersome birds

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

The Goosinator is a bright orange, very noisy device that herds troublesome geese in Lethbridge, Alta., where the birds are staying longer as winter months get warmer. The CBC’s Allison Dempster looks at how different parts of the country are trying to manage that problem — and shares a classic story of one man’s encounter with this “gangster of nature.”

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. It's like the sound of Canada, or at the very least the sound of the Canada goose. They are a national symbol, but for some, they are becoming a national nuisance. Crop damage, droppings, the hissing sound they make. What is good for the goose is not always good for us. And in Lethbridge, Alberta, they're actually trying something new to send a message to the growing goose population.

That new thing is called the Goosenator. Alison Dempster went to check it out. Alison, good morning. Good morning, Matt. This is a literal wild goose chase that we sent you on to find out what about the goose. Am I saying that right? The Goosenator? Yes, that is what it's called.

It sounds a bit menacing, doesn't it? What is the Goosenator? It's a remote-controlled device about a meter long, and it's bright orange. It's got a face on it with big yellow wolf-like eyes and jagged teeth, exaggerated, almost like a six-year-old painted it, which is no shade to the Colorado manufacturer. It's all by design. I'll let Nelson Houle explain. He's the pest management guy with the city of Lethbridge. He gets to operate the Goosenator. As soon as I pull it out of the truck, they start getting nervous.

It was designed to have all the features that geese dislike. Geese have more of a spectrum of colour than humans do. So they don't like bright colours. Also, the sound coming off the prop is a sound that humans aren't really acute to, but geese are really aware of it. The sound is that weird thing that I hear in the background there? Yeah, that whirring, that's the prop, yeah. What is said goosinator made out of?

Mostly styrofoam, but it sits on plastic skis so you can take it out onto the water. And did you get a turn at the controls of the goosinator? I wish, but there's some skill and strategy involved in running a goosinator mat, and so that ruled me out. But I did watch Nelson maneuver the goosinator around a local lake, which was partly frozen, and it really zips along.

Nelson takes a tactical approach. He describes it as herding. He doesn't like the term hazing, so he circles them, and they fly off pretty immediately. He doesn't get too close, but he wants them to get the hint to move it along. I mean, this does seem like cutting-edge goose management technology, but beyond that, why is this city going to these lengths? What is the goose situation in Lethbridge? Well, there are a lot of them for one thing, but it's not just their numbers, Matt. There's also a group of them, 1,200 at last count, that won't leave. 1,200 in one city in Lethbridge? Yeah, yeah. And in that one spot. And so far,

they're not migrating south for the winter. So for the past couple years, they've been congregating on a little patch of open water at Henderson Lake Park. And this park is a lovely spot in Lethbridge, really nice lakeside paths, gardens, lots of grass. So it's popular with humans and geese. Jackie Cardinal is the city's

park's natural resource coordinator. And she says there's even a name for where the geese. Jackie Cardinal is the city's parks natural resource coordinator. And she says there's even a name for where the geese hang out in the winter. We call it the hot tub because you'll drive by, it's minus 45 out. And there's so many birds on this spot of open water that it looks like a hot tub. There's steam, there's so many birds you can't even see the water. So when it starts, there's a handful that stay and people feel bad for them. So they feed them and then those ones come back because they're like, hey, there's free food here and there's open water and we can hang out here. And then it just there's more and more and more and more to the point where it becomes a problem.

The mind spins thinking of the geese in the hot tub, even with said hot tub, though. I mean, you would imagine that sticking around for the winter in Lethbridge would be a bit of a gamble for the geese. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's one reason why the city of Lethbridge is trying the Goosenator. They're concerned that with the warmer winters, the birds are getting lured into staying, but they then risk getting caught when there's a cold snap. And when I visited Henderson Lake, I saw a number of dead ducks on the ice. They apparently stuck around too long. So people obviously don't want to see the birds freezing to death. But there are other issues that have come up in Lethbridge with its growing

goose population. And in particular, Matt, what it leaves behind. This is a problem that many Canadians coast to coast would be familiar with. Yes. Yeah. The droppings. Canada goose, little known fact, Matt, deposits about 1.5 pounds of poop a day, two-thirds of a kilogram. At this I did not know. That's a lot. That's quite the visual, yeah. And multiply that, you know, by a couple thousand, let's say, and you get a yuck factor that can get in the way of people enjoying a park. The feces is also not good for the lake. There's the E. coli risk, and the lake already has a blue-green algae problem.

Also, along with the carpet of droppings, there's also the odd human-goose or pet-goose conflict. As we all know, the geese, a.k.a. cobra chickens, can be quite prickly in the spring around their young. The cobra chicken phrase I've never heard, but as somebody who goes running, I have been out and have come across geese and hissed at, I mean, I'm a 54-year-old man and the geese are snapping and hissing at me and I've been kind of spooked by the geese. I mean, they're big birds, right? Yeah, like about, you know, 15-pound, 20-pound bird coming at you. That's unnerving. A cobra chicken? That's what we call them?

Yeah, well, out here on the prairies, that's what we call them. I don't know. Maybe that's not a pan-Canadian term. I've never heard that. Okay. Well, it's apt. I keep learning more things. It does feel, I mean, do we know that you're talking about Lethbridge and the 1,200 that won't leave that one area in the city. Do we know whether we are seeing more geese in Canada? Their population has surged in recent decades. Do we know whether we are seeing more geese in Canada? Their population has surged in recent decades. The current North American count for breeding geese in the spring is roughly 7 to 8 million.

Compare that to back in 1950 when it was estimated there were 1 million. I talked to Frank Baldwin about these numbers. He's a waterfowl biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Winnipeg, and he says the population really took off in the 90s. In recent years, they've been growing at a tremendous rate, so somewhere around eight to nine percent a year. And if that's sustained, that means a doubling roughly every eight or nine years, potentially. And that's definitely been on the radar of our branch and of also the provincial wildlife branches across Canada. A population doubling every eight or nine years. Why is the population exploding like this? There's an interesting story behind how we got

here. The Canada goose wasn't always this ubiquitous. At one time, we were actually worried about their survival. There were too few geese in Canada. Yeah, yeah. This goes back to the 1800s. Geese were a handy food source for settlers. They were also used for their feathers and quills. So they were hunted year-round, and their numbers dwindled. Frank Baldwin says then, in the last century, we decided to restore the population. If you go back into the 1950s and 60s, Canada geese were relatively uncommon.

They were at one time thought to be even extirpated. And there was a really concerted effort across the prairies to foster their return. So there was all sorts of programs that protected them, encouraged them to nest in different areas. There was translocation projects and rearing projects. And essentially, with the variety of protections that they've been afforded through refuges and restrictions on hunting, they've really been allowed to expand quickly. That worked, didn't it? It sure did. But it's not the only reason for our robust goose population. Frank Baldwin says another big factor is the expansion of agriculture. So the geese basically have got a banquet of crops to feed on now.

They love emerging soybeans and canola and corn, and those are becoming quite dominant crops in Prairie Canada. So when the birds hatch, their goslings are looking for a really nutritious, high-nitrogen food source, and those emerging crops really fit the bill. So Matt, in Manitoba they started seeing farmers claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in crop damage compensation. And that expense along with vehicle collisions and damage to public parks and golf courses led to a new designation for geese a few years ago.

In southern Manitoba, they are officially classified as overabundant, which allows for a hunt in the spring. Baldwin says it's too early to tell how it's working in terms of curbing the population growth. So you have the hunt in Manitoba. Lethbridge has the Goosenator. As our goose expert, what are other communities doing to deal with this exploding population? Well, Matt, in Ottawa, they've been using something called the Goose Buster. Do tell. I mean, I like the name. People are being interesting in terms of, you know, the name they're cooking up for their goose eradication project. But what is the Goose

Buster? Well, this one is a drone and it's similar to the Goosenator. The idea is to repel the geese. So it's got lights, and a big part of the deterrent is the sound. I'm going to play some for you, Matt. Brace yourself. I'd leave the area, let alone the geese. I know. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. Steve Wombolt is the creator of those horrifying sounds and the Goosebuster. He's who you're going to call.

What is the Goosebuster's track record? Is the Goosebuster, is the Goosebusters successful? Is he getting rid of the geese? Yeah, well, he's been doing this for 10 years now, so he's got a decent track record. He says he has success in terms of keeping beaches clear of droppings. So what happens is they do get the message and they do leave. You can tell by the amount of poop and feathers on the beach the problem is we you know we got geese all up and down the ottawa river so you got this continuous

turnstile but we can easily get a goose to leave and a lot of them do not come back but because there's so many of them this is where the population of them becomes a huge problem. So Matt, beyond the drone, the city of Ottawa has other tactics. It's put up coyote decoys and parks. It also has what it calls an egg management program. So geese eggs are sterilized in their nests. Each year, the city spends roughly $100,000 on bird management. And up to half that goes toward dealing with geese.

And Ottawa's not alone. I mean, communities across the country are experimenting with these strategies. What about in the hot tub in Lethbridge, where the geese are hanging out and not leaving? Does the city know whether the goosinator is working to clear out the hot tub? It's still early days. The crews need some colder temperatures to set in so that when they drive the geese away, ice forms over the hot tub. They also need people not to feed the geese as well-intentioned as they might be. I chatted with folks in the park about how they feel about the resident geese. Probably what they leave behind is what most people don't like.

what they leave behind is what most people don't like. In the summer and the spring, the water is disgusting. Yeah, it has a strong odor. Lots of crap. And I slip and slide, and I've got to check my boots after my walk. If people would just quit feeding them, that would be a big help. It's nice to see wildlife in the middle of winter. I don't want to be all negative.

I mean, I see his point. Sure, they hiss at you and they might leave a mess, but they're also part of the natural world. I live in a big city, and one of the things I love is that occasionally you will see geese just fly over the downtown core of the city that I'm in. And you think, this is a big, but you're also just part of that natural world, right? Yeah. Yeah. People told me they did like having the birds around. You've just, as you say, seeing some wildlife in increasingly urban spaces is maybe reassuring a

connection to the natural world. They're not so sure the Goosenator is going to work, but they would like to see their feathered friends head south for the winter for their own sakes. You have learned and taught us a lot about geese in the course of this conversation. Alison, thank you very much. My pleasure, Matt. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is.

I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Now, before I go, I've got one more, if you can believe it, Canada Goose story for you if you have time. Of course, yes. I figured. So this is one of the CBC, this is one from the CBC Calgary archives. It's a piece by my colleagues, Chris De La Torre and Paul Karchet.

And it's legendary here. We still get audience requests for it. It's about a close encounter Chris had with a pair of geese. A very close encounter. All right, Alison, thank you very much. Alison Dempster, our producer in Calgary. I mean, how could you not? This is that legendary story. Oh yeah, this was it, man. It was right over here. We're on the Bow River bike path. We're on the north side of the river, right around where Edmonton Trail meets Memorial Drive. So one morning last year,

this used to be part of my daily commute into work. I'd cycle along the river into Kensington and then over to the CBC. I was just trucking along, had my music and my earphones. It was a good day. I thought it was going to be a really good day. But there was two geese, full-grown geese, and then, like, their babies. What do you call the babies? Geese slings or something? The chicks?

Sure, goose chicks. And I slowed down for them because they were directly crossing the path. And I'm just, you know, I'm literally thinking to myself, this is one of the things that make cycling to work so special. And just as I'm having that thought, the two adults, they're staring at me like stink eye, like, what you doing here? Kind of look, right?

I've stopped completely, sitting on the bike, and the two geese attack me. Like, one of them was like, and I could just see their faces, you know? They were, you know, that sound, you know? Yeah, the sound. So, the one attacks my face. And if you can just imagine the feathers going like this. And I'm just like, ah! It really was terrifying.

I basically just fell off my bike and started swinging the bike around my head, like in full, like big dramatic circles, right? I was basically fighting for my life at that point. So they scattered off. I tried to catch my breath, tried to, you know, gather myself and head to work. I still had a whole work day to face. So I get back on my bike and I head off. But the brake, the front tire is stuck. It won't move at all. So I guess what happened was

in the melees, I had so much adrenaline going through me that I had broken my front brake. So the front tire wouldn't roll anymore. so i couldn't ride my bike to work uh so i i locked my bike up against the nearest tree that tree right over there and i walked over to work i ended up being an hour and a half late or so that evening i went back from my bike and my bike was gone like who would steal a broken bike that's locked up to a tree? Unless, of course, you're two geese that planned the whole thing to begin with. And, you know, the whole thing just went according to plan for them. Hey, geese are the gangster of nature, you know? I think that they just do what they want, you know?

And I'm sick of it. There was one weekend just maybe a month or two after the attack where I just walked down to Eau Claire by the river there where they all hang out. And my son, who was four at the time, was like, what are we doing, Dad? And I was like, son, I need to just make peace here. Just bear with me.

So we went and we sat down with the geese. They didn't bother me or anything. They didn't even really acknowledge me or notice that I was there. But I really don't think I achieved the closure and peace that i still seek today you still seem angry about it yeah i mean like it's so weird like who who gets attacked by geese man i have to i have to walk around with this my whole life oh there goes two there goes two. There goes two of them. Three of them. Four of them. A favorite from the CBC Calgary Archives, featuring Chris De La Torre and producer Paul Karchin. Have you had a close encounter with the Canada goose?

How did that work out for you? Are you still, like Chris is, looking for closure after that encounter? The email address, thecurrentatcbc.ca. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.