After trying everything from remote-controlled hazing vehicles to strobing sleep-deprivation devices, a Moncton official says the city has finally landed on something that is working to control the population of Canada geese in Centennial Park.
The city is using a practice called addling to prevent goose eggs from hatching, said Dan Hicks, Moncton’s park director.
“Of all the things we tried, the vegetation buffers and the addling of the eggs have been by far the most successful,” said Hicks, dubbed by close family as “the official goose herder of the city of Moncton.”
“We don’t have two geese becoming 10 geese becoming 30 geese. I think we had one gosling at Centennial Park in the last two to three years.”
This is the time of year when human visitors to the 94-hectare Centennial Park, west of the downtown, have perennially run afoul of the iconic Canadian waterfowl.
Like humans, geese appreciate the park grounds for their greenspace and water features,” Hicks said.
“We have these large, vast lawns that are mowed down towards the water’s edge. … We see a nice, lovely picnic site and geese see a really nice picnic site too.”
Water is a safe space for geese, he said, so their preferred nest sites have a quick escape route to water for their young.
A goose pair on a muskrat mound, a favourite type of nesting site. (Submitted by Jaden Barney)
“They get agitated if you get near.
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