Opinion: Canada geese in Awatea Lakes proving problematic

Canada geese at Awatea Lakes. Photo / David Haxton

Comment: Weekly column by Kāpiti mayor K Gurunathan.

The wounded Canada goose crashed-landed in the backyard of a residential property bordering Otaraua Park. The flapping dying bird traumatised the young family.

A contractor hired by the council to cull a flock of geese damaging and fouling the reserve had shot the bird. The 2013 incident happened just a day before the official opening of the sparkling new $23 million Coastlands Aquatic Centre.

I remember then mayor Jenny Rowan singularly worried that this untimely media focus on the traumatised children caused by the dying goose could potentially take the limelight off the celebratory opening of the long-awaited and controversial community project.

Roll back a few years to May 2001 and we have another PR disaster. This time a feral rooster upsetting a Raumati neighbourhood with its incessant crowing. The rooster evaded attempts by council's animal control to trap it and led an officer to take a potshot. The wounded bird escaped. It found its way to a nearby kindergarten where, the next morning, the children discovered the dead rooster. The children, who had been regularly sharing their lunch with the rooster, were traumatised by the death of their "pet". The media descended on the small community and it became national and international news. The council, which was responding to community complaints, suddenly found itself in a PR disaster.

Over the past year we have been seeing another rise in complaints about flocks of Canada geese, especially at Awatea Lakes in Paraparaumu.

There is almost a religious crusade against these birds. The introduced species competes against native birds. Prodigious feeders, they gobble up 1kg of grass a bird a day and are known to poop in excess of 1kg a day. A potential source of avian influenza, campylobacter, E coli and salmonella.

The birds are attracted to parks and reserves, especially those with waterways and lakes. These are inevitably close to residential areas. Excellent protective parents, they inevitably respond aggressively against humans enjoying the same space in the park. The geese also frequent Otaraua Park where council had tried a repellent called Flock Off without great success.

Earlier this month the Whanganui District Council had to reassess its "killing method", abandoning its original plan to lure the birds by feeding them food pellets laced with a narcotic or poison. New information indicated delayed effectiveness and therefore an opportunity for the birds to disperse. Animal rights group SAFE also opposed the method as being inhumane.

In Palmerston North, a March 2020 plan to round up the flock and shoot them under cover of darkness was called off after a public outcry that it was cruel. The Palmerston North council is still reminded of a January 2018 incident at Hokowhitu Lagoon when the trapping of the geese by nets and the manual breaking of their necks and tossing their flapping bodies on the ground was witnessed by horrified people attending a seminar in a nearby centre.

Kāpiti's habitat for Canada geese has expanded in recent years thanks to the 10 extra hectares of wetlands created by NZTA as part of the construction of the expressway.

Something has to be done to manage these birds and it must be carefully managed. But I have a problem with those people who develop almost a hatred for these animals. Seeing them only as pests that pollute our parks.

Bear this in mind. Humans introduced them to Aotearoa. Humans and our greedy, unsustainable consumer economies continue to destroy the global environment and its biodiversity. Compared with the Canada geese, humans are the real pests and parasites. Let's not fool ourselves.