Canadians Find Another Use for Drones: Chasing Geese

Two years ago, photographer Steve Wambolt pitched Ottawa city councilors on a plan to use his drone to take aerial shots of Ottawa. Councilor Bob Monette leaned over with a question: Can that thing be used to chase Canada geese?

“I’m sitting in my suit thinking, this guy is nuts,” Mr. Wambolt said.

But the answer to that question turned out to be yes. Mr. Wambolt’s drone has succeeded where years of sound decoys, dogs and sickly-tasting compounds failed, ridding the city beach on Petrie Island of a goose that can drop 2 pounds of poop a day.

Now Mr. Wambolt has big ambitions. He wants to clear Canada’s capital of the Canada goose, by creating a squadron of drones to be flown from strategic stations around Ottawa.

That could ruffle feathers in a country with a highly conflicted view of the goose to which it has given its name. While reviled for its ability to defecate every 20 minutes, Branta Canadensis is often seen here as a hardy survivor whose noisy migration home in the spring sounds the welcome end of another long winter.

Some Canadians are even leaning toward naming this goose its “national bird,” in the same way the U.S. has the Bald Eagle. The Royal Canadian Geographical Society is currently asking Canadians to choose a national bird by voting online, and plans to lobby the government to make the winner part of national celebrations in 2017 marking 150 years of the country’s confederation.“Among the first to arrive in spring, and last to leave in winter, they mate for life and both parents share in raising their young,” Canadian novelist Will Ferguson wrote, praising the Canada goose’s loyalty on the geographical society’s website.

“If I’m going to be chased through a public park anyway, I would rather it be by a national emblem,” said Mr. Ferguson, who has written humorous books on Canadian culture.

The prospect of the goose winning the title leaves Mr. Wambolt with a tough pitch: Chasing what could be the national bird out of the nation’s capital.

On a recent visit to Petrie Island, Mr. Wambolt pointed to the rationale for his pitch, the spotless grass.