The Fraser Valley's supersized goose problem

One recent spring day, a volunteer found a lost, lonely baby goose in the tall grass along the shore of Cultus Lake. She took the fluffy gosling and tracked down a goose family to adopt it.

But the rescue was actually somewhat counterproductive.

Because Taryn Dixon wasn’t there to keep lost baby geese alive. She was there to keep them from hatching in the first place.

Dixon is part of a group tasked with keeping Cultus Lake’s goose population down (and also the director of Electoral Area H). Volunteers manage the lake’s goose population by, among other things, shaking eggs so goslings don’t hatch in the first place.

In Cultus Lake and other Fraser Valley communities, aggressive geese (and the waste they leave behind) annoy locals and guests alike and deter them from public spaces like beaches and parks, and can even cause health and economic challenges. So come communities are taking matters into their own hands, with Harrison Hot Springs the latest to consider ways to limit geese in the area.

Such human intervention in the Canada Goose population wouldn’t be new—in fact, a similarly dramatic intervention from decades past is the reason the Fraser Valley has such a significant fowl problem in the first place.

‘Time is of the essence’

Harrison Hot Springs is a resort town with an abundance of everything that geese love best: grassy parks, water, and tourists who gleefully toss them bits of their sandwiches.

But the geese can be nuisances to both locals and visitors that flock to the area every summer. The birds can alarm guests with aggressive territorial behaviour. And they poop everywhere. Not only is goose feces unpleasant to discover on the bottom of one’s shoe, but its bacteria can pose health hazards large and small. If enough of that bacteria (including e. Coli and other hazardous strains) gets into a swimming area like Harrison’s popular lagoon, it can force its closure. For a resort town built on its ability to lure happy vacationers to splash in its waters and lounge in its parks, an overabundance of geese can have considerable economic consequences.

The feces presents an economic risk for nearby agricultural areas, too. Geese and goose feces are carriers of bird flu. When the contagious disease is discovered in farmed commercial birds like chickens, farmers must cull entire flocks.

Last month, Harrison Hot Springs mayor Fred Talen asked staff to look into a program for geese control based on nearby successful efforts in Cultus Lake. Addling eggs in the spring was an important part of that process, and with spring on the way he said the village should move quickly.

“Time’s a bit of the essence for this,” he said.

Council agreed with him and asked staff to look into goose management plans, including egg addling—or destroying goose eggs.

Goose feces has been a problem in Harrison since at least 2001, when village staff vacuumed goose poop off beaches with a specialized shop vacuum. The vacuum strategy wasn’t a long-term solution though. In 2011, when the issue was raised again, then-mayor Ken Becotte said the village was trying to solve the problem but the geese seemed to ignore every effort and “take it all in stride.”

Neighbouring flocks

Goose management has had some success in neighbouring communities.

In Abbotsford, however, there have been several false starts. Over the years, the city has tried to scare geese off with hawks, dogs, bright lights, and “audio harassment.” But today, a combination of efforts have seemed to work, city staff say. Those actions include signage that warns guests not to feed the geese, mapping goose nests, and addling eggs in the spring.

The process began in 2009, but initial efforts ended when expenses climbed. Efforts to manage geese restarted again in 2017 and while still expensive (the city budgeted to spend $25,000 in 2019), the goose management work has continued ever since.

Staff say that while effective, goose population control would be better if efforts were widespread.

“This population control program would be much more effective if conducted on a regional scale,” an Abbotsford city staffer told the Current in an email.

Dixon agrees. After all, geese can fly.

In Cultus Lake, the volunteer-run Goose Management Committee for which Dixon volunteers has been working to keep goose populations level in the small community for the last six years.

A combination of methods has so far proved effective. Trained volunteers count geese four times a year and track down goose nests to addle eggs. Fencing keeps geese from nesting in certain areas. Signs tell community members and tourists not to feed geese.

Dixon’s records show that the area’s geese population hasn’t risen since the project began in 2019, when a professional environmental consultant was brought in to lend a hand. The volunteers have been following the playbook developed that year ever since.

Over the last six years, 250 eggs have been addled, Dixon said.

“It’s not about trying to eradicate them,” she said. “It’s really about managing the numbers so others can enjoy the lake as well.”

Conservation Concerns

Goose feces isn’t just an issue for bird and human health. It’s bad for the health of the lake, as well, Dixon said.

“They poop a lot, and it all goes into the lake. We’ve got to do whatever little bit we can to keep goose feces out of the lake, because there's a lot of it.”

There are other conservation concerns, too.

Despite their name, the subspecies of Canada Geese that populates the Fraser Valley isn’t a naturally-occurring species. It’s a hybrid—one born out of efforts to deliberately increase Canada Goose populations. The project worked a little too well.

“We tried to fix the problem and made the problem worse,” Dixon said.

Today’s large, aggressive brand of Canada Goose that populates flocks in Cultus Lake and Abbotsford can scare smaller, native waterfowl from nesting on local shorelines.

Canada Geese were not nearly as common 100 years ago.

Intense overhunting and habitat loss in the early 20th century decimated goose populations. In an attempt to help the species recover, conservationists imported breeding stock and the young of a larger subspecies of Canada goose from Ontario and Minnesota with native geese in the 1970s. The geese that reside in Fraser Valley today are the descendants of hybrid local and imported geese. They stay over winter and don’t migrate.

The new hybrid goose, as well as changes in the region’s environment like the addition of more parks and man-made lakes, helped populations recover then surge to their present-day levels.

In Cultus Lake, Dixon said that seeking professional help to guide the community’s goose management efforts had a big positive impact. “It helped us to get someone to teach us what to do,” she said. “Otherwise we would’ve just been lost.”

In Harrison Hot Springs, the future of the resident goose population is still up in the air. Staff will research options for population control measures for the council to consider in the coming weeks. For the time being, at least in Harrison, tourists will still have to watch where they step—and what eats their leftovers.