“If you feel the urge, don’t be afraid to go on a wild goose chase. What else are wild geese for?” -Will Rogers

The Canada goose is in the family Anseriformes, which includes more than 170 species of waterfowl, like ducks (Geese that were born prematurely) and swans (Narcissistic geese). The Canada goose’s distinct features are it’s black head, grey body, and wings (Compared to the boring white of other geese) with a white chest and rump (According to Google it has a white chinstrap, tan breast, and brown back, but they don’t know what they’re talking about). If you’ve ever been near a Canada goose, you’ll know the fear they can strike in your heart with just a honk. The system of communication of the Canada geese is surprisingly complicated (It’s not really, I’m just saying that so that you don’t leave. Please don’t leave.). Geese honk in unison in order to stay together, and so that no 1 gets left behind when the gaggle (That’s the plural for a goose!) decides to take off and fly. If you go too close to a goose, the goose will start honking wildly. At first the goose may honk softly to give you a warning, but if you keep advancing the goose will honk louder to alert surrounding geese and may attack. Geese usually can’t seriously harm humans, but they can attempt to bite you or hit you with their wings, which can break bones (There are actually trained goose control experts who are called in when geese become a nuisance; these jobs pay 75 000 dollars a year, as much as an associate attorney). When geese mate, they usually mate with geese who are a similar size to them, known as assortative mating. The believed reason for this is because for geese and most other waterfowl they practise something known as sexual conflict. This means that for a male and female to mate, the male will have to force himself on the female. This means that a small gander (male goose) will have a low chance of being able to overpower a large dame (female goose) compared to a small dame. When geese hatch, for the first 2-3 weeks of their life the goslings (baby goose :] ) form something called a “gang brood”, which is when multiple broods (a sibship (a group of siblings) of geese) form one large brood. Some believe that they do this because the parents and the children couldn’t recognise one another, while others believe they simply do this so that the goslings have more protection from threats (It takes a village). Goslings are able to learn how to swim within the first day of being born and learn how to fly within 2-3 months of hatching (Unlike human babies who just sleep and eat >:[ ). Geese begin to look for a mate at around 3 years old, except for some who start at 2. When geese find a mate they will stay with them for life, if one mate passes away the other will look for another mate in the same mating season as their demise. Now that we know what the Canada goose looks like and does in its home territory, let’s talk about their yearly migrations.

It’s late October and the ground begins to freeze. A goose family consisting of a gander, a dame, and 2 children prepare for their annual migration south. They’re going to migrate from their breeding grounds in northern Quebec to their winter grounds on the eastern seaboard of the USA. The trip usually takes about a week, but some geese without goslings have been recorded flying the thousand kilometre journey in just one day travelling around 40 kilometres an hour, faster than the average Tour de France cyclist (I just want to say, how do they bike that fast‽ That can break speed limits! Someone needs to either call the FDA or an exorcist, because something isn’t right.). The geese usually migrate down from Canada to the central parts of the USA, but some can migrate as far south as Mexico. Just like most elderly Canadians, once the winter is beginning to end the geese will begin their migration up to Canada. This spring migration usually takes more time than the autumn migration, as the geese usually make several stops on the way to build energy reserves that will be needed for the final leg of the migration, as well as the breeding season right after. In addition to their autumn and spring migration, the geese also usually take a special migration called a moult migration. During late May and early June, geese moult all their feathers in order to repair them for the next year. During the 5 to 6 week moult the geese are unable to fly, making them vulnerable to predators, like coyotes (Coyotes can actually catch prey? Looney Tunes lied to me :[ ), bears, wolves, etc. During the late May and early June, the geese who for some reason or another weren’t able to mate migrate further North to places with lots of water so that they can hide from predators in the water, while geese with goslings generally migrate later in the season. Now that we’ve talked at length about the biology and the migration of the goose, let’s talk about their history in Canada.

Before European colonisation, the Canada geese were mostly constrained to living in southern Ontario and the southern prairies. As more Europeans began to colonise Canada, overhunting of the goose led to the goose being nearly extinct by the beginning of the 1900s. This led to a lot of wildlife officials and aviculture enthusiasts (An aviculture enthusiast is basically just a bird nerd :] ) attempting to help the Canada goose by breeding the geese on their farms and then releasing them to the wild. This bolstered their numbers, along with the passing of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, which aimed to protect migratory birds (Just a side note, why are legal documents so long? The Migratory Birds Convention Act is 64 pages long! For birds!). However, probably the most impactful change was mostly unintentional. With the coming of the 20th century, many forests were razed (burned) to make room for lawns and agriculture. For most animals this was a bad thing, but not for the Canada geese. They loved these new expansive lawns and manmade lakes because of the lack of predators and hunters in urban areas. If you just looked at the population of migratory geese it would show some growth, but most of the growth wasn’t of the migrant geese. From the year 1970 to the year 2012 the amount of migrant geese went from about a million geese to a little under two million geese, peaking at a little over 2 million in the years 2000 and 2008 (Did the geese cause the recession?), while the amount of resident geese went up a lot more. In 1970 it’s estimated there were roughly 200 thousand resident geese, while in 2011 there were 4 million resident geese. All this growth may seem fine and dandy, but these seemingly harmless little goobers can cause a lot of damage. Media Spokesperson for Manitoba Public Insurance reported that in 2015 there were 202 insurance claims related to geese. As well as being a nuisance to drivers, these ostrobogulous avians also cost the agriculture industry nearly $300 000 a year in crop losses. They also can also cause problems for planes too, the incident depicted in the movie Sully where US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to ditch (Make an emergency water landing) after the plane ran into a gaggle of geese. I hope you’ve learned a lot about geese today. While these little dopes may be a little bit annoying, I still believe it is a tragedy that they are just the unofficial official unofficial bird of Canada instead of the unofficial official bird or official unofficial bird of Canada. What can you do to help you ask? The best thing you can do is to speak up, show you care, contact your local Member of Parliament, stage a riot, anything to help our cause. I’ve been Amitav Krishna, and long live the Waterloo Navy.