University of Waterloo students can report and navigate around geese nests on campus

What started years ago as a teaching tool has evolved into a full blown website used by University of Waterloo students.

James McCarthy is the developer behind Goose Watch who said it's around this time of year that geese start pairing off and nesting.

"The website provides information about how to behave around nesting geese or if they're being territorial, what kind of signs they'll show and things like that,"

He originally built the technology to show how geospatial mapping worked.

"Because it uses a lot of the technologies that we teach in the classroom, so we kind of built it as a demo for that, but then we tweeted it out and then kind of took on a life of its own."

From there, the University of Waterloo Student Success Office dubbed it Goose Watch.

The website recorded goose nests around the campus, both current and previous, using information from student to create a map.

People can learn how to avoid a chance encounter with the bird. The website even creating custom routes between classrooms based on where nests are located.

While the maps only cover campus grounds, McCarthy encourages people to look into the technology used.

It's open-source, so if people are willing to put in the time and learn, they can build their own maps.