A flock of Canada geese from Waterloo Park have been rounded up and shipped to a bird sanctuary a few hours away. According to a release from the City of Waterloo, staff worked with a professional wildlife relocation team to gather up approximately 200 birds and load them onto a trailer bound for Jack Miner Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Kingsville, where they were released. The journey took about three hours. The city said they had a permit from the Canadian Wildlife Service for the relocation. “We’re not trying to get rid of all the Canada geese in Waterloo Park,” Robin Milne, Waterloo’s director of parks, forestry and cemetery services, said in the release. “We do want to reduce conflicts between geese and people, and cut down on the mess from goose poop. Some of the geese may return to Waterloo when they regain their flight feathers, but we hope that the distance and other geese at the sanctuary will encourage them to move on in the wild.” The city said the decision to relocate the geese was primarily made due to the number of complaints they received about bird droppings. Attacks are rare, but the city has received some reports of aggressive geese. All told, the cost to gather the flock cost about $8,000. Last year, the city also spend $40,000 cleaning up goose poop. According to the Government of Canada, relocating problematic geese is a temporary fix but is not recommended as a long-term solution. “Family groups (flocks of adults and goslings) should only be relocated if they pose a significant and immediate human health risk (for example near an airport or in a very public place and they are attacking passersby),” the federal government’s website says. “If they must be moved, they should be relocated the shortest distance possible that will ensure they cannot return immediately to the area where they were captured. This distance should be less than 50 km, in order to not establish new breeding flocks or increase existing ones in other areas.” The city said if this year’s relocation effort is successful, the move may become an annual program. Waterloo Park is home to hundreds of Canada geese. Previously, the city has tried to use coyote decoys to deter the birds.
