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Canada Geese droppings impacting Sandpoint Beach addressed in 2025 budget · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A new plan to deal with the Canada goose population
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  Speaker 1: and Windsor will be brought to City Council for consideration
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: during next year's budget deliberations. The Community Services Standing Committee
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  Speaker 1: voted today to direct administration to select one option laid
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: out in a report to the committee outside of a cull.
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  Speaker 1: They don't want to do a cull of the growing
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  Speaker 1: goose population. Four options that could be selected. They include
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  Speaker 1: habitat management that would see grass and pollinator plants grown
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  Speaker 1: longer in certain areas to deter them from gathering, the
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  Speaker 1: utilization of hazing techniques such as train dogs, lights, lasers
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  Speaker 1: or pyrotechnics to make geese uncomfortable in their habitat, the
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  Speaker 1: relocation of geese and egg removal efforts to discourage the
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  Speaker 1: geese from returning to nesting habitats in certain areas of
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  Speaker 1: the city. And we've heard that the Canada geese are
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  Speaker 1: creating traffic issues. I spoke with Ward three councilor Rinaldo
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  Speaker 1: Augostino about how they can create potential issues at Windsor
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  Speaker 1: Airport as well just being flying around. And then of
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  Speaker 1: course there is there droppings that we deal with on
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  Speaker 1: our riverfront path. But increasingly showing up at Sandpoint Beach.
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  Speaker 1: Joining me right now to discuss the impact of these
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  Speaker 1: foul feathered friends of ours here in Windsor is Ward
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  Speaker 1: seven councilor Angelo Marinanni, How you doing.
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  Speaker 2: Doing well, John yourself? Good afternoon, good afternoon, doing well.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. So this when we started chatting about this
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  Speaker 1: a little bit yesterday here, the first thing that you
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  Speaker 1: brought up to me was, look, this is not a
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  Speaker 1: issue to joke about, and I'll do a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of a mea culpa.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 1: I had a little bit of fun with this yesterday
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  Speaker 1: on the air, and I think that's a fair thing
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  Speaker 1: to do when it comes to a topic. But you said, look, no,
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  Speaker 1: this is a very serious issue, and you immediately went
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  Speaker 1: to e coali.
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  Speaker 2: That is correct. So at Sandpoint Beach we have the
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  Speaker 2: healthy unit that does the regular testing to see if
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  Speaker 2: the water is okay for swimming and with the coal
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  Speaker 2: I count in that area, and one of the major
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  Speaker 2: factors for a high ecal I count at Sandpoint Beach
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  Speaker 2: has to do with the droppings that occur along Sandpoint
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  Speaker 2: and the park top twenty six and what happens after
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  Speaker 2: a rainfall. The droppings are then leached into the soil
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  Speaker 2: and then plume into the immediate shoreline area. So when
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  Speaker 2: the reading is taken, there's a high ecal account. With
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  Speaker 2: summers getting hotter, a lot of people like to enjoy
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  Speaker 2: the beach. It's a very economical way of beating the
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  Speaker 2: heat and enjoying probably one of the best views that
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  Speaker 2: we have here in the city of Windsor. And part
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  Speaker 2: of that would be going into the water. So controlling
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  Speaker 2: the droppings would then make that beach safer. As far
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  Speaker 2: as water quality is concerned.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we want to have you know, good water quality,
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  Speaker 1: of course, we don't want to be seeing ecali. What
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  Speaker 1: do you think about these different recommendations that are being
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  Speaker 1: offered here by administration. I know that you said there
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  Speaker 1: are a ton of different remedies that you could look at.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of the recommendations we're
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  Speaker 2: put forward by today's Committee Community Service Standing Committee, such
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  Speaker 2: as the egg removal, the hazing, the relocation, these require permits.
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  Speaker 2: But what we can do immediately is habitat management, and
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  Speaker 2: I think we should be focusing on that habitat management,
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  Speaker 2: and that's by changing the by making it not as
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  Speaker 2: appealing with the geese, then they won't frequent those particular areas.
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  Speaker 2: And I mean we have to be selective. We can't
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  Speaker 2: say we're removing all geese from all parks, but certain
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  Speaker 2: parks are certain areas where it is a concern. Maybe
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  Speaker 2: we can employ some of these tools to deter the
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  Speaker 2: geese from choosing that habitat.
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  Speaker 1: So we look at Standpoint Beach, and of course a
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  Speaker 1: lot of it is beachfront, but there is a large
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  Speaker 1: grass area there and I imagine the geese look at
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  Speaker 1: it and go, hey, food, and then you know, they
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  Speaker 1: do their natural thing, which is what results in potentially
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  Speaker 1: E Coli in the water. Would it be something as
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  Speaker 1: simple as, you know, growing the grass up higher in
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  Speaker 1: that area, or maybe getting more sand, or.
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  Speaker 2: Even changing the variety of grass for example, I mean
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  Speaker 2: we have Kentucky Kentucky bluegrass that's like the tenderloin the
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  Speaker 2: filet mignon of goose dinners. I mean, and we cut
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  Speaker 2: it and then the cuttings, we actually cut it, and
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  Speaker 2: we leave like this delicious meal in nice little bite
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  Speaker 2: sized pieces every Thursday for them to enjoy and clean
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  Speaker 2: up those bite sized pieces. So I mean, there's we
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  Speaker 2: can We can change the grass. But there's also other
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  Speaker 2: tools technological tools that could be employed such as soundy
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  Speaker 2: terrens ultra ultra high pitch frequency sounds that you and
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  Speaker 2: I can't hear, but the geese absolutely hate. Strobe lights
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  Speaker 2: are being employed by various corporations, all all in Essex
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  Speaker 2: County to deter geese from nesting in their areas. So
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  Speaker 2: at night, to have strobe lights flashing every twenty five
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  Speaker 2: seconds creates an environment that isn't inviting to geese. And
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  Speaker 2: then there's other things. While we're playing in the beach
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  Speaker 2: and the engineering reports coming back on how we're going
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  Speaker 2: to change and renovate the beach, we can employ a
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  Speaker 2: six inch sort of wall around the beach, which then
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  Speaker 2: would prevent goslines from going over the wall, making that
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  Speaker 2: area that habitat not attractive to the geese. So there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of things that can be employed and moving forward,
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  Speaker 2: I think the call is very difficult to do, and
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  Speaker 2: I don't quite agree with that, but there are steps
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  Speaker 2: that we can take before that which require permits, such
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  Speaker 2: as the relocation or the egg removal. But immediately what
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  Speaker 2: we could do is habitat management and look into other
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  Speaker 2: best practices that are being employed in other municipalities. For example,
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  Speaker 2: an open dog park in areas that you have concerned
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  Speaker 2: in the morning from six thirty to seven thirty. This
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  Speaker 2: will create once again a habitat where geese will realize, listen,
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  Speaker 2: there's dogs running around here. We're not going here. And
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  Speaker 2: it's these sort of things that we can employ. But
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  Speaker 2: once again, you know, this is this is nature. It's
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  Speaker 2: a concern, but I'm looking for the more prudent answer
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  Speaker 2: to that concern. I don't think we should be going
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  Speaker 2: to anything that costs too much but still improves the
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  Speaker 2: quality of life. And another very very important fact is
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  Speaker 2: we have to clean up after them. So we do
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  Speaker 2: have some new machinery that we've been employing along our
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  Speaker 2: trails and that Standpoint Beach and that really seems to
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  Speaker 2: be helping a lot as well. Well.
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  Speaker 1: I know that the Vancouver Park Board approved a management
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  Speaker 1: plan that included the quote lethal removal of Canada geese
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  Speaker 1: as a method of population control. That was back in
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  Speaker 1: May of last year. And I don't I don't think
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  Speaker 1: Windsor wants to go and take the branding of you know,
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  Speaker 1: the Canada Goose culling Capital of Canada that doesn't sound
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  Speaker 1: too great to me. So if we could do the
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  Speaker 1: mitigation steps first, it's probably it'd be easier to walk
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  Speaker 1: up to a good news story than to try.
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  Speaker 2: To walk back from the right right, I think that's
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  Speaker 2: an extreme measure. Yeah, we can. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: steps that we can take that are a bit more
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  Speaker 2: humane at this point in time, as such as relocations,
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  Speaker 2: such as while the geese are molding, to collect them
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  Speaker 2: and relocate them to a new area, or take their
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  Speaker 2: eggs and incubate them at another area or at a
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  Speaker 2: sanctuary somewhere. But there are other things that we should
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  Speaker 2: be doing that are more prudent, more and I think
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  Speaker 2: more effective in the long run. If you just if
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  Speaker 2: you just, let's say, kill all the geese, they just
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  Speaker 2: come back the next year. So we have to look
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  Speaker 2: at the environment from the perspective of a goose. A
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  Speaker 2: goose does not want to be in an area that
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  Speaker 2: doesn't have sight lines and then looking out for predators.
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  Speaker 2: So our big open fields of this delicious meal that
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  Speaker 2: we prepare for them every Thursday when we cut our parks.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe we can look at some ways of making it
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  Speaker 2: not as active. And I look forward to the report
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  Speaker 2: that will be coming back to council. And I enjoyed
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  Speaker 2: this review. This this sort of this is what it's
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  Speaker 2: all about. It it's discussion of issues and things that
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  Speaker 2: some people feel aren't important, but to other people they are.
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  Speaker 2: And trying to find the solution that you know appeals
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  Speaker 2: to everyone or most of the people.
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  Speaker 1: I guess, well to most of the Windsor Rights right
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  Speaker 1: right right. So here's what I would suggest. We take
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  Speaker 1: all the grass cuttings and then we go and like
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  Speaker 1: place them in our surrounding municipalities. Then we let the
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  Speaker 1: geese go and expand out word and you know, every
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  Speaker 1: Thursday make up their meal out there.
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  Speaker 2: I was thinking the same thing, or just send them
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  Speaker 2: maybe up to Mississauga, because Mississauga is using Windsor or
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  Speaker 2: Jack miners as a as a relocation point. And if
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  Speaker 2: you ever notice a few geese with a couple tags
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  Speaker 2: on their legs, those are originally from Mississauga. So maybe
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  Speaker 2: maybe we can bring them back to Mississauga.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know Mississauga is sending us their Canada geese.
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  Speaker 1: Now I got a problem with Mississauga on.
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  Speaker 2: Top of them that we love Insusaga. But you know what,
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  Speaker 2: maybe they can use a few extra geese, and you
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  Speaker 2: know what, we have to also at the same time
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  Speaker 2: keep an area. It's not like we're going to remove
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  Speaker 2: all the key so we just want to keep them
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  Speaker 2: in areas that really don't remove from the quality of
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  Speaker 2: life of the residents that we serve. People like to
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  Speaker 2: go out in their parks, like to have food, and
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  Speaker 2: you know, you don't want to be going in your
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  Speaker 2: car and say, no, I have to take off my
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  Speaker 2: shoes because they're covered in doo doo. So yeah, it's
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  Speaker 2: kind of you know, it's and that's where the machinery,
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  Speaker 2: the cleaning equipment seems to be really working well. And
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  Speaker 2: looking at habitats modification and management I think is the
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  Speaker 2: answer for us now because it is low cost and
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  Speaker 2: the permits are not required. We have to go through
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  Speaker 2: the federal government because of the Mandatory Convection Act of
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  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, which says you can't you can't do
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  Speaker 2: this unless you follow these first steps before you can
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  Speaker 2: take the next step. But I don't even want to
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  Speaker 2: go to the next step. I think the first steps
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  Speaker 2: will be successful.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's cross our fingers about that, or have the
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  Speaker 1: Canada geese flap their wings, so to speak, fingers crossed. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me, Counselor.
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  Speaker 2: They are beautiful, especially when they fly over you low
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  Speaker 2: in that V formation. That to me is impressive.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely so. We love to see them, just not
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  Speaker 1: some of the impacts of the Award seven. Counselor Angelo MARINIANI,
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, John, have a great day you as well.