NPA vows to end goose poop at Vancouver playing fields | Daily Hive

Canada Geese at Jericho Beach Park and a border collie dog. (Shutterstock)

Over several months each year, Vancouver’s park spaces turn into a minefield of goose droppings — and this is particularly becoming a real problem for playing fields.

As their newest election campaign platform promise for securing Vancouver Park Board commissioner seats, the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) is promising to finally address the poop problem.

If elected, the NPA says they will remove all geese from Vancouver’s playing fields.

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Jason Upton, a Park Board candidate for the NPA, states he would adopt best practices from wildlife experts, including directing Park Board staff to “seek quotes from individuals and companies to get out to our worse fields and then hold trials to see which providers are the most effective.”

According to experts, says Upton, trained border collies and other human-friendly herding dogs are the only viable option.

“Cardboard cut outs and other fake predators don’t scare them, the chemical sprays people have attempted only get washed away in the rain,” states Tanya Wheeler, a wildlife biologist and animal behaviourist in Ontario. “A fast running land animal is the only thing that will scare them off.”

Upton cites statistics that show each goose deposits about three pounds of waste per day. In a single field with 30 geese, that is equivalent to about 100 pounds per day.

“Not only does this make for a gross day for our kids playing in it, but it’s also an E. coli health concern. It’s simply not possible to clean it all up in time,” said Upton.

Birds, specifically pigeons, have also been a cleanliness and health safety problem for TransLink on its SkyTrain network.

In recent years, TransLink has tackled its pigeon droppings issue on SkyTrain by dispensing birth control to the birds. More recently, it also deployed pigeon traps to reduce the high frequency of track intrusion alarms being triggered by the birds.

The NPA is running four candidates for the Park Board, six candidates for City Council, and five candidates for the School Board. Fred Harding is the party’s mayoral candidate.

The civic election is scheduled for October 15, 2022.

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