Bird cull may shoot down council

Canada geese control is a vexed issue. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Canada geese damage aircraft, ruin grain crops and foul sportsfields.

Now these imported game birds are threatening to overthrow the elected council of North Canterbury Fish and Game - again.

When a Fish and Game team turned up to cull canada geese on Christchurch's Avon-Heathcote Estuary before dawn yesterday, members of the Fish and Game council stood side by side with other protesters to block the operation. The protest succeeded. Not a bird was killed. Some of the cull team became angry and abused the protesters.

One former and three present Fish and Game council members took part in the protest.

They were angry that their organisation was conducting a cull when members, they say, were denied the opportunity to shoot the birds.

Two-term councillor Edgar Russ said the issue had long divided the council, which otherwise functioned well. He remembered heated arguments over culling, which had brought about the downfall of the council five years ago.

"It brought down one council and it looks like it will bring down another," he said.

Hunters supported some culls, mainly on inland riverbeds, but believed they could contain canada geese numbers in Christchurch if they were granted permits to shoot.

These had been denied by the Christchurch City Council.

Opposition to the cull was "very strongly felt", Mr Russ said. The protest group would turn out again today in case another attempt was made to cull the birds.

"We'll see it through and sort out the consequences later," he said.

Fish and Game regional manager Ross Millichamp declined to comment on the abandoned cull and on relations in the organisation's council, which employs him.

City council environment acting manager Michael Aitken said the abandonment of yesterday's cull was "disappointing".

He did not know what would happen next but stressed the need for a cull because of the increased risk of bird strikes on aircraft and the fouling of city parks.

The method of killing was to have been lethal injection by a veterinarian. This was the most humane method possible, Mr Aitken said.

Opponents of the cull said the opportunity offered by canada geese being in the moult, and therefore unable to fly, was quickly slipping away.

Mr Russ said the city council had previously issued permits for controlled shooting of canada geese near the estuary, but a change in council policy had stopped the practice over the past three years.

- NZPA