City of Lethbridge launches 'Goosinator' tool to manage waterfowl at lakes

LETHBRIDGE — While it may look colourful and cartoonish to humans, a new tool is designed to represent a predator for geese and other species at Henderson Lake to improve water quality.

The "Goosinator" is helping address the increasing challenges posed by the waterfowl population in Lethbridge.

"The Goosinator is an (amphibious, remote-control hazing device) that is used to chase geese and waterfowl populations from water bodies," said Jackie Cardinal, the city's parks natural resource co-ordinator.

The need for the harmless machine began in 2020 when geese took over a portion of Henderson Lake in the winter, creating major problems.

Cardinal says since then, human-goose conflicts have increased, and there has been an accumulation of goose feces, water quality degradation and turf health degradation.

"In the summer and spring, we have a lot more turnover in the lake; we're irrigating out of it, so there's a lot more movement—water's coming in and going out—and in the winter, it has nowhere to go," Cardinal said.

"Between the birds hanging out here and defecating in the lake, and when they do succumb to some of their diseases, we're not able to get them off of the ice."

With a small body of water on the north end of the lake for the geese, the close proximity is also causing an increase in bird diseases, including possibly avian influenza.

"There's lots of different bacteria, diseases or pathogens circulating around in the environment," said Everett Hanna with the faculty of environmental science at Lethbridge Polytechnic.

"E. coli is one that's cited quite often, salmonella also, and those can get pretty concentrated, especially when you have a lot of feces concentrated in one spot."

The goal is to clear the lake of any waterfowl during the winter.

The Goosinator will be used in the late fall and late winter to encourage migration before nesting season.

"The geese are really susceptible to it. ... They see it and they're like, 'We're out,'" Cardinal said.

"The ducks we're finding are a lot more resistant. They're a little bit more like, 'Eh, we can take that thing,' so they'll fly off but circle back way sooner than the geese, so it'll take a little bit more intense operation to get them to hopefully stay away."

The device will also be used in other impacted areas, such as Sherring Sports Park and Fairmont Lake Park.

While birds generally fly away from the Goosinator, Hanna says there is the potential they may grow accustomed to it.

"They're pretty adaptable," Hanna said.

"These species are around as long as they've been because they can differentiate between bona fide risk and non.

"If you go outside of the city and try to walk up to geese in a field, you won't get inside a few hundred feet of them, whereas at Henderson Lake, those exact geese, not different birds, would allow you to walk up and let you pet them because they've differentiated between predators in each environment."