Increasing numbers of Canada geese around the Upper Clutha - part of a trend of increasing numbers of the birds around Otago - are causing local farmers a major headache but others have come to their defence.

Fish & Game communications officer Bruce Quirey said the organisation has noticed more Canada geese in Otago and found them in locations where they have not previously been seen.

“We estimate that geese numbers in the region have doubled in the past decade but our data is limited to Fish & Game monitoring sites, not a region-wide population count,” Bruce said. 

Maungawera Valley farmer Tim Burdon is not happy that, in his words, Otago Regional Council (ORC) has “washed their hands” of responsibility for the birds.

His farm, Mt Burke Station, is plagued by more than 200 Canada geese which arrive every summer or autumn.

“They’ve become a bloody nuisance,” he told the Wānaka App.

The geese are “quite spectacular and appealing to visitors”. 

“They’ll eat anything that they fancy; they help themselves to our sheep tucker. We’re trying to preserve every bit of living green grass for sheep and we’re not in the business of growing feed for ‘help yourselfers’.”

He estimated that six to eight geese would eat the equivalent of one sheep.

Culling the geese has to be done every year, he said, with local farmers rounding up volunteers to shoot them.

“You’ve got to make a concerted effort because all you’re doing is shooting a dozen at a time. Any resource or help in terms of being about to control them, we’d be grateful for,” he said.

“ORC have washed their hands of it.”

ORC told the Wānaka App the geese are an increasing problem, but while the Canada Goose is an “organism of interest” in the Regional Pest Management Plan (2019-2029), the plan has no rules requiring the control of geese. 

“Nationally there has been an identified problem with Canada Geese specifically for landowners, infrastructure managers and managing risks to aviation,” ORC environmental implementation manager Libby Caldwell said.

“Organisms of Interest are not accorded pest status but future consideration of them for inclusion in the RPMP could arise…” Libby said.

The geese, which were introduced as a game bird into New Zealand in 1905, are a plague in South Canterbury, where flocks of hundreds of geese garner media attention.

Concerns have been raised by members of the public about the increasing number of geese and the amount of poo they leave on Wānaka beaches, and cases of duck itch have been reported after people have been swimming near large numbers of the geese. 

Forest & Bird Central Otago branch chair Andrew Penniket offered a different perspective on the birds, which visit Lake Wānaka each year.

He said while the geese “create a bit of a poo hazard they are also quite a spectacular bird and quite appealing to visitors”.

“And in a strange way they are the ecological equivalent of our extinct native geese that once roamed Aotearoa before they were wiped out by early Polynesian hunting. So they aren’t all that out of place,” he said.

“The trouble now is that all the extra habitat and food provided by grass pastures and agriculture, had caused an explosion in numbers so that they are now a real menace for farmers.”

Petrina Duncan of Southern Lakes Sanctuary told the Wānaka App Canada Geese arrive in the shallows of Lake Wānaka every year during the peak of summer after breeding. 

“I've been watching them near the marina and around Bremner Bay and near Glendhu Bay lately. At no time have I seen them being aggressive to other birds,” she said. 

“They are in non-breeding mode so should not be showing territorial behaviour. They seem very chilled out and are just foraging in the shallows.”

The Canada Goose was introduced as a game bird into New Zealand in 1905.

PHOTOS: Wānaka App