A group called the Guardians of Our Salish Estuaries (GooSE) has been working to manage the population of Canada geese in the District 69 region.
The group plans to keep doing it to protect the local estuarine ecosystems, agricultural lands and urban environments.
A report was presented at the Regional District of Nanaimo's Regional Trails and Parks Committee meeting on Oct. 1. It was received for information.
Manager of Parks Services Rick Daykin indicated in his report the non-migratory Canada geese are not native to Vancouver Island and were brought to the region from Eastern Canada in the 1960s and 1970s for wildlife viewing and hunting. Since then the geese have overgrazed the mid-Island estuarine marshes particularly those in the Englishman River and Little Qualicum River estuaries. The situation has negatively impacted migratory waterfowl and native birds, competing for limited food sources, as they no longer nest in the Englishman River estuary.
With the support and funding from the City of Parksville and Regional District of Nanaimo, GooSE has worked on controlling the geese population in the region applying a range of mitigation strategies that include egg addling, target harvesting, and landscape modification.
GooSE recently conducted a moult count of the non-migratory geese last July from Lantzville north to 200 metres north of the Little Qualicum River. The survey showed there are 266 Canada geese in the Oceanside area with 115 located in Lantzvillle, 43 in Nanoose Bay, six in Craig Bay, 55 at the Englishman River Estuary and 47 at the Qualicum River Estuary.
The current number indicates GooSE's intensive addling and harvest of Canada geese in the Nanoose Bay, Parksville, Englishman River, Little Qualicum areas have been successful in controlling the population as it has been reduced from the last moult count of 1,500, conducted in 2016, to 266.
The RDN has already allocated in the 2024-2028 financial plan, $20,000 for the region-wide management of Canada geese in its Regional Parks operating budget.