Gold Coast Goose rehoming: Oxenford activists plan to fight removal of geese

A group of animal-loving Gold Coasters are threatening to sabotage council-contracted traps to stop it rehoming about 50 geese in the city’s north.

A GROUP of residents is threatening to sabotage council-contracted traps to stop it rehoming about 50 geese in the city’s north.

Furious Oxenford homeowners say the birds have been part of the neighbourhood for decades and they will do “as much as they can” to keep them there.

Unnamed locals on Graywillow Boulevard, which backs on to the Coomera River, told the Bulletin they would “not be surprised if council found their goose traps weren’t working”.

The Bulletin yesterday revealed the council was looking to re-home about “vexatious” 50 geese to shelters in Logan and Bilambil after complaints about the population size.

Residents wanting the birds to stay said numbers had only increased from 21 to 31 in 14 years.

Gold Coast Council is on a mission to rid the coomera river of geese and residents aren't happy about it. Laura Szkoruda with just some of the local geese. Picture: Jerad Williams

A Change.org petition launched to stop the relocation of the Graywillow Boulevard geese had received more than 770 signatures in 12 hours.

Councillor William Owen-Jones previously wrote online that the animals would be assessed and rehomed by the AWL.

“The animals will be captured in small manageable lots of five-seven before being transported to the Animal Welfare League in Coombabah where they will be given a general health assessment and evaluated on their suitability for relocation,” Cr Owen-Jones said on his Facebook page Tuesday night.

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Some of the birds. Picture: Jerad Williams

However, the story took new twists yesterday when the animal welfare groups said they had not been approached to take in the non-native birds.

The AWL said it would not be assessing the birds or helping to re-home the animals.

“Animal Welfare League Queensland are not involved with this particular case — we have been advised that the Parks and Recreation Division of City of Gold Coast are working with RSPCA,” a spokesman said.

The RSPCA later said it had not been approached by the council about the geese, and did not have the capacity to take care of them.

Councillor William Owen-Jones. Picture: JERAD WILLIAMS

Cr Owen-Jones yesterday said the relocation information was provided to him by the department and the rehoming would be undertaken by a private contractor.

“All information has been provided to me by council officers,” he said.

“I can confirm the City has been in contact with a Logan-based high school

about the animals.

Cr Owen-Jones said council is however exploring options to return a small number of desexed animals to Oxenford.

“We need to manage the smaller flock, they are not native birds and because of their small number do not have a deep gene pool to avoid inbreeding.”

Locals are furious at the planned removal of the birds. Picture: Jerad Williams

“None of the animals have left the park at this stage.”

“If they were native they wouldn’t have to be moved.”

Cr Owen-Jones reiterated it was not the first time council had taken action to control the goose population.

In 2014 council removed a number of geese and reduced the population to 15.

“We have also had residents make complaints about the geese and their presence on the road so clearly we needed to act.”