VANCOUVER – Residents along and near Zero Avenue in Langley Township have now put up some of their own signs to warn motorists that mother geese and their goslings cross the road frequently this time of year.
During nesting season, Canada geese nest in a pond on the United States side of Zero Avenue. When their babies hatch, they herd them across the road and into Canada.
Resident Trudy Handel, who lives across from the pond, says every year she sees the geese get killed as they try to cross the road.
“The mothers start trooping them into Canada for a little cross-border shopping,” she says. “They go to eat the grass on the Canadian side.”
Handel says Zero Avenue is notorious for speeders, and even though she and other residents have asked for better signage and increased speed enforcement, but they feel the Township has not done enough.
“It’s not that I’m a goose hugger,” says Handel. “But I don’t want to see them get killed.”
She says last year there were about 40 geese killed along this stretch of road.
Paul Cordeiro, the manager of transportation engineering, says they have installed three ‘Watch for Wildlife’ signs along the road, and near Handel’s property, and they remove them at the end of the nesting season.
“If we leave them up all year then people don’t notice them as much,” says Cordeiro.
The Township has also advised the RCMP that there have been some concerns about speeding along Zero Avenue from the residents.
“About eight or nine years ago we also installed some speed bumps along the Zero Avenue corridor,” adds Cordeiro.
But Handel says three ‘Watch for Wildlife’ signs is not enough and more needs to be done.
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