By Tanya Cronin

Goose-busting fox sends birds flying

Apr 19, 2018 | 4:56 PM

KAMLOOPS — On a sunny spring day, local parks and beaches are popular spots. But the warm weather is also attracting a ‘less welcome’ group of guests, flocks of Canada Geese. They’re looking for food, but what they leave behind is unsightly and toxic, spreading garbage and disease. Geese have long plagued green spaces in the city, but thanks to a remote-control predator, the problem is starting to take flight.

His sheer presence gets them moving, but when Buster kicks it into high gear, he sends them flying into the distance.

“As soon as you put him down on the ground, take your hand off, most likely they’re all going to fly away,” says Roly Worsfold, President of High Country Flyers.

This remote-control fox has become a goose’s worst nightmare, and he’s taken over city parks and fields. Buster wastes no time in harrassing the geese until they finally get the message and leave.

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“The geese don’t like him, he’s got an electric motor and a propeller on the front of his nose and his tail moves around, you can steer it and he goes on water.”

Through the spring and summer months, High Country Flyers club members have been contracted by the city to curb what has become a big problem. Taking shifts both day and night, Roly Worsfold and Don Hiebert work to clear these unwanted guests.  

“They poop 28 to 29 times a day and people are using the parks with families and they’re playing frizzball, they’re playing soccer, baseball and all that, so they don’t want this stuff to slip around.” 

“You can chase them, they’ll be back in probably two to three hours and you have to go do it again, we’re running anywhere from three to four chases a day,” says Don Hiebert, vice-president of High Country Flyers.

Canada geese are pooping machines, each one can produce two pounds a day, loaded with hundreds of different kinds of bacteria. Being careful to leave the gosslings alone, Buster buzzes the beach bound birds with his remote control ways, a humane and what is considered to be, a highly effective tactic. 

“Last year we started the program, we had in and around 900 geese within the park here, and like Roly said they poop around 28 times a day, so you figure 28 times 900 every day, it adds up quite quickly over a month or so, this year when we started the program, we were down around between the 600 good mark a day.”

For more than a decade, the City of Kamloops has looked for ways to solve the geese problem. They’ve tried trained dogs and noise machines. But its this styrofoam predator, in his orange and blue, that seems to be creating cleaner and greener surroundings. 

“Mac park is the central location because of the sports events that go on here throughout the week, but we also do Riverside Park and the Carles Anderson Stadium, last year when we did the Charles Anderson Stadium we had about 50 to 100 geese there at any given time, this year, we’re down to six,” says Hiebert.