Canada geese egg addling underway in Okanagan

The Okanagan Valley Goose Management Program will soon begin its annual egg addling to manage the population of Canada geese.

It will start egg addling to manage non-migratory Canada geese that are overpopulated and increase the risk of water contamination in local water sources, according to a media release. The program will go on until mid-May.

Egg addling is a process that makes eggs non-viable and results in unhatched eggs. It is done by shaking eggs or coating them with non-toxic, biodegradable, food-grade corn oil within 14 days of incubation.

The eggs are returned to their nest as soon as the process is done and geese will continue to incubate them until they realize they will not hatch at which point it is too late in the year for them to produce more.

This method is supported by many animal welfare organizations and does not harm the geese in the process, the release says.

This egg addling program targets geese that arrived in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s that are not natural to the local ecosystem.

“These Canada geese were relocated here from other parts of Canada and the U.S. as part of controlled introduction programs and they would not be nesting in this region naturally. This addling program only affects these introduced species,” Kate Hagmeier, Program Coordinator of the Okanagan Valley Goose Management Program, said in the release.

The program has prevented the Canada goose population from growing out of control.

In the last 17 years, more than 22,500 eggs have been made non-viable which equates to about 11,500 to 17,000 geese being kept out of the population in addition to the offspring those geese would have hatched, the release says.

The program is asking the public to report lone geese, pairs of geese or nest locations on private or public land by emailing them at coordinator@okanagangooseplan.com or calling 1-877-943-3209.

The public is asked to stay away from the nests and not touch the eggs.

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