Windsor, ON makes wolf cut-outs to scare geese away, but it doesn’t look like it’s working

Well, not really. Black silhouettes of wolves have been placed around sections of the riverfront in an effort to spook those pesky Canadian geese away from pedestrian zones, and the senior manager of parks operations in Windsor, James Chacko, believes it’s an idea that will work.

“It’s something that has been done by other cities in other areas,” said Chacko to The Windsor Star.

He’s not wrong, either. Park officials in Stevens Point, Wisconsin also used the unorthodox measure to scare away some bold geese, who as Stevens Point Park Director Tom Schrader put it, were “leaving their mark on the grass.”

Canadian geese are infamously headstrong, often waddling nearby or even inside of popular recreation spots frequented by human park-goers, overcrowding them and often defecating all over them.

“Hopefully, they do the job. And hopefully, no one makes off with them,” said Chacko about the Windsor-made wolves. Chacko went on to say that the creative measure is inexpensive, with funding coming out of the budget typically utilized to clean up goose droppings from walking paths.

Canadian geese have become an increasing problem across Canada and the U.S. Recently, Denver, Colorado started rounding up the often-bombastic pests, killing them, and turning them into meals for the needy, as populations continued to surge.

“The resident goose population in (Denver, Colorado) is too large, which will cause many problems including overgrazing of grass, ornamental plants and agricultural crops; accumulation of droppings and feathers; disease, attacks on humans by aggressive birds; and the fouling of reservoirs, swimming areas, docks, lawns and recreational areas,” said US Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Suzanne Bond to CNN.

Again, similar complaints regarding goose feces were common among places that have to deal with the large birds.

“We get so many complaints about people coming out here with a blanket to sit on the grass, and they cannot sit on the grass because there’s so much goose poop in the parks,” said Scott Gilmore, deputy executive director of Denver Parks and Rec to KDVR.

Windsorites surely hope the wolf cut-outs will be a success, as a recent budget showed the city spent over 75,000 dollars cleaning goose feces off of city sidewalks.