Excessive goose poop on sports fields making play gross

Saturday, 25 May 2024

Players and parents are fed up with piles of goose poop on sports fields, particularly in east Christchurch.

Tackling, running and falling over during a sports game without getting covered in Canada geese droppings is becoming “a real challenge”.

“In all my years of sport - as an adult and with my kids - I have never seen anything like it,” parent John McKenzie said. “It’s a health issue.”

It follows an explosion of the animal population in Canterbury since the Christchurch earthquakes because of higher water levels and newly available habitat in the city’s east.

On weekends, McKenzie’s children play football at Cuthberts Green sports park beside Cowles Stadium in Bromley. The council-owned land accommodates rugby league, football and has multiple softball diamonds.

Players were running around in a “huge amount” of bird poop - the “worst anyone’s seen”, he said.

“The kids couldn't sit down, had trouble placing bags, or anything, down as the amount of bird/geese poo made it difficult to find any space that wasn't affected.”

The Coastal Spirit Football Club, which uses Cuthberts Green as one of its home grounds, said it had raised concerns with the council.

The city council, which has received nine complaints about geese fouling sports fields in the last year, does not clean the poo from sports fields, instead relying on weekly mowing and rain to hurry the decomposition.

Canada geese have caused havoc in many parts of New Zealand since being introduced for game hunting over 100 years ago - one riverside walkway in central Christchurch became known as the “poop loop” in 2020.

There are about 60,000 of the distinctive honkers across the country, two-thirds of which are in the South Island, according to New Zealand Birds.

They are aggressive towards other birds, graze on pasture, and contaminate recreational areas, waterways and crops. The Guardian dubbed them New Zealand’s “rabbit of the sky” excreting more than a kilogram of poo a day.

The regional council hopes to expand culling efforts, but says that hinges on funding - more of which would be available if the bird was classified as a pest.

About $20,000 was spent annually in a joint culling operation involving the city council, ECan and Christchurch Airport.

There was “limited budget available” said Environment Canterbury biosecurity principal advisor Laurence Smith because, while widely considered a pest, Canada geese were not recognised or declared pests nationally nor locally in the Canterbury Regional Pest Management Plan. According to Fish and Game, no region has declared it a pest.

Council acting head of parks Rupert Bool said a “range of methods” - including nest disturbance combined-agency culls - were used in key ecological sites” where feasible. No cull was currently planned on council land.

Discussions were “about to take place” between the councils and airport about expanding culling in Christchurch, Smith said.

Canada geese were removed from the game schedule in 2011 to allow landowners to cull the birds themselves after populations grew increasingly out of control.

MPI’s biosecurity manager of pest management, John Sanson, said it was up to regional councils to control the birds.

The public could share concerns about Canada geese online here.