Why did the geese cross the road?
To get to the other side, but in the process, large groups of geese have been blocking traffic in the areas in and around Wascana Park.
Most people CTV News spoke to say they give them a chance to cross, and others will take matters into their own hands and march the geese across the road themselves.
But almost everyone is accepting of the geese in the park, and according to Sarah Romuld, an ecologist with Wascana Centre, the birds strutting across the road is part of the park.
“We have that balance that we need between a natural space, but also an urban setting,” Romuld told CTV News. “A fine example is Canada geese when they’re crossing the road.”
A normal family of geese is called a “brood” but this year the park’s geese have been combining up to about four families together into larger “gang-broods”, which can sometimes have more than two dozen birds in one group.
And when those larger groups decide to cross the street at the same time, it can cause problems.
But what should you do if you run into a gang-brood or any number of geese crossing a road?
As it turns out, stopping might not always be the best option for the geese, but that doesn’t mean you should run into them either.
“When you stop for the geese, they get used to that behaviour,” Romuld explained. “Then when they go out to busier roads and drivers do not stop, that’s why you see more hits, more fatalities with Canada Geese.”
From a purely driving perspective, SGI says it’s best to avoid a collision by slowing down and giving yourself enough time to react, and not by swerving or suddenly braking.
“Rely on your common sense,” Tyler McMurchy with SGI said. “We have some very brave geese here in Regina, and sometimes they don’t care if there’s traffic.”
So if you see geese in the streets, try and keep moving – but if a brood keeps going, give them a “brake”.
