Summerland tries new tactic to rid geese from beaches without culling

Canada Geese have long since taken over public parks and beaches in the Okanagan, dropping poop everywhere they go, and the District of Summerland is trying to get rid of them in a humane way using solar-powered technology.

Considered by many to be nuisance birds, there are roughly 2,500 Canada geese in the valley. Every spring, members of the Okanagan Goose Management Committee addle some of the eggs, but despite these efforts, the goose population is expected to keep increasing.

Earlier this month, the director of community services with the District of Summerland, Lori Mullin, oversaw the installation of three “Away With Geese” units on local beaches that are designed to deter geese by emitting a pulse of light from dusk to dawn at goose eye level, making it difficult for the birds to rest.

“I think we’ve had pretty good success with the one at Rotary Beach in front of the washroom building but we can’t know how effective it is yet,” she said. “We will look at the amount of geese and goose droppings during August, which is the worst month for this issue in our area.”

The weather-proof, noiseless units flash an amber light from dawn to dusk that reaches 100 yards in every direction, forcing the geese to fly somewhere else in order to sleep. The birds tend to stay in the same place day and night so the units could deter them from congregating at beaches in the long run. However, Mullin said the units do need to be moved around once in awhile so the birds do not become desensitized to them.

The goal is to get the geese to relocate in a humane way that doesn’t hurt members of the public, other wildlife or pets. Summerland chose not to follow Vernon, which opted to cull a number of geese from local beaches, to much success.

After a particularly bad August for geese at local beaches last year, Summerland council chose to give the light emitting deterrents a try upon the advice of Okanagan Goose Valley Management program coordinator Kate Hagmeier, who presented them with different options.

“We have a good relationship with Kate, she is our expert and is super knowledgeable,” Mullin said. “She said there is no perfect method, but provided us with different ideas and council chose these units to trial.”

Many of the geese in local parks and beaches in the Okanagan are invasive, introduced in the 1960s and 1970s from other parts of Canada as part of controlled introduction programs. Before European colonization, Canada geese nested in southwest Ontario and the southern prairies, but in the early 1900s unregulated hunting drove the geese to the brink of extinction, prompting wildlife officials to breed them and introduce them to new areas.

As agricultural and urban spaces developed, geese flocked to open pastures and urban areas for easy food and fewer predators, and are now a problem with many of them no longer migrating but staying in warmer parts of Canada like Kamloops and the Okanagan year-round.

The problem of geese in the area has been ongoing and controversial with some wanting to protect the species and others wanting to get rid of them.

The humane Away With Geese could be a solution. Each unit costs roughly $400 dollars and the protective cage around a little more than that, and according to the company’s website, they’ve had a 97% success rate since being created two decades ago.

Time will tell if the deterrents are effective n Summerland, and if the outcome is positive the units could be useful for other districts in the area to keep geese, and their poop, off the beaches.

“I haven’t head a lot of feedback from the public yet but we think people are happy we’re doing something, they don’t want the geese on their beaches,” Mullin said. “I think this has been a positive thing for the community.”