One of the wolf decoys at Christchurch Botanic Gardens being used to scare off Canada geese. Photo: Facebook / Christchurch Botanic Gardens
Rangers are using wolf decoys to scare Canada geese away from display gardens and popular picnic areas at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.
Its director Wolfgang Bopp told Morning Report that the sheer number of the birds was the problem.
"They're large birds and for any large animal, what goes in the front, comes out in the back and that's quite a lot.
"If we only had a couple of them, five or six across the gardens, that wouldn't be a problem."
He wanted picnic-goers to be able to put their rug on the lawns without having to contend with a lot of geese faeces.
Wolf decoys used to scare Canada geese in Christchurch Botanic Gardens
The problematic Canada geese that are being scared away by the wolf decoys. Photo: Facebook / Christchurch Botanic Gardens
The decoys were a black cutout of a wolf or coyote with white eyes and writing on it to identify that they were being used as predator control.
Bopp first heard about the effectiveness of the decoys from Clearwater Golf Course, who have used them for about two to three years.
"They actually gave us one of the decoys which we then just traced over and cut out our own ones."
The decoys were moved every day, he said.
"[The ranger] will move them every day and he's actually going as far as barking at the geese at the same time.
"Now, he's finding that as soon as they see him, they think, 'Oh right, ok, let's move on'."
While the decoys did not work 100 percent of the time, Bopp said they were seeing a real difference for the lawns where they did not want geese.