When there's something fowl
On your local beach
Who you gonna call?
The "buster" in this case is a drone that uses lights and sounds to chase geese away from an area they're trying to inhabit.
And Steve Wambolt, its Ottawa-based inventor, hopes that city hall will call on him. Wambolt used the radio-controlled device to scare geese off a local beach last year and wants to do it again this summer, The Ottawa Sun reported on Thursday.
Wambolt, a former IT worker, was hired by the city last summer as part of a pilot project to chase birds off a beach at Petrie Island. The public area there had become a health hazard due to excessive goose feces, ABC News reported.
"We take an E.coli count every day at Petrie Island," Coun. Bob Monette told the network at the time.
"The department of health has strict rules that if the count is higher than 100, people are not allowed to swim. Last year, the east beach at Petrie Island was closed a total of 13 days due to high E.coli counts."
Wambolt took the Goosebuster out every day at around 4 a.m. last July, harassing the geese for about three hours before flying it again in the late afternoon and at nighttime, The Ottawa Citizen reported.
The effort proved successful: after Wambolt's drone, the beach did not have to be closed once. Visits by 140 geese were whittled down to about 15 or 20 on a daily basis.
But there's no certainty that the Goosebuster will be rehired this summer. The city wants to see a number of proposals before choosing which one is best to keep birds from fouling the area.
Re-training geese to stay off a property can take as many as two seasons before they no longer feel welcome, Wambolt's website says.
Check out some photos of the Goosebuster in action:
Goosebuster Chases Geese Off Ottawa Beach
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