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An increase in the number of Canada geese has led to gangs of geese congregating in grassy areas and leaving behind messy droppings in parks by the shoreline in Vancouver.

Nick Page, biologist with the Vancouver park board, said Tuesday that the Canada geese in local parks are resident populations and not migratory geese that pass through the region every spring and fall.

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“I think we are getting an incremental increase in the goose population,” he said. “There are more geese than we’ve had — at least in the last decade — in parks.”

Photo by Arlen Redekop / PNG

Page said awareness of Canada geese is higher during the summer because people spend more time outside and are more likely to see the birds and want to use the same grassy areas the geese see as a food source.

A 2016 report to parks board by academic Jennifer Rae Pierce estimated there were about 2,270 Canada Geese in Vancouver in 2016, and that population could more than double to 5,900 by 2025.