The Capital Regional District (CRD) has given its stamp of approval to a new Canada Goose Management Service with a bylaw passed on Tuesday, February 7th.
The management service will attempt to reduce the impact of growing Canada goose populations in Greater Victoria and its surroundings.
Egg addling is the approach the CRD has chosen to take in reducing the numbers of Canadian geese in the region. It is a method of population control in which eggs are physically removed from the nest, tested for embryo development, terminating the embryo and then returning the egg to the nest.
If the egg was simply removed from the nest, the Canada Goose would just lay another egg.
“The current population of non-migratory resident Canada geese are impacting farmland and degrading coastal ecosystems and waterways, public and private lands and increasing risk to public health across the region,” said CRD Board Chair Colin Plant.
“This Goose Management Service will allow us to coordinate our approach in dealing with this issue and reduce the impact of these geese on the region.”
According to studies done on behalf of the CRD, goose populations are doubling in size every four years.
The CRD says that with this rate of population growth going unchecked for so long, the result has been increased ecological impacts on public and private lands, estuaries as well as wetlands.
A Regional Canada Goose Management Working Group will be established by the CRD to coordinate the outreach, education and implementation of the egg addling program which cannot commence until the appropriate permits have been attained from BC as well as Canada.
The CRD says that First Nations, stewardship groups and local governments will all be consulted in how they go about the egg addling process.
The budget to fund this service is set to be approved by April and it will be reassessed annually to determine its success.
 has given its stamp of approval to a new Canada Goose Management Service with a bylaw passed on Tuesday, February 7th. ){kind=link}