'We can't even leave our house': Waterloo students terrorized by 'angry' nesting Canada geese

Kate Bueckert · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 09, 2025 3:41 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

The screams were picked up connected the doorbell camera.

The video shows Jory Harris and her roommates arsenic they unreserved to get wrong their Waterloo, Ont., location arsenic a Canada goose flies astatine them.

Harris, a pupil astatine Wilfrid Laurier University successful Waterloo, has shared a compilation video to TikTok of a brace of "angry" geese attacking people.

"We can't adjacent permission our house. He's truthful angry. There's present a nest there. So we actually, we conscionable don't cognize what to bash anymore," she said of 1 of the geese.

Harris said earlier this period she was coming location from people 1 day when she noticed 2 geese connected her lawn. She speculated with her roommates astir what would hap if the geese started a nest, but they all assumed the beforehand tract of a location wouldn't beryllium an ideal spot for a nest and the geese would determination along.

They were wrong.

"He's inactive extracurricular close now, conscionable connected our beforehand lawn," Harris said.

'The croissants were flying'

Harris' video shows 1 person carrying a container of 20 croissants from Costco that helium ends up dropping aft a goose runs astatine him.

"The croissants were flying and past the geese started eating them," she said.

She said she and her roommates sneak retired their broadside doorway and into the backyard to debar the geese, but Harris says they've besides made popcorn and watched their Ring camera footage arsenic unsuspecting radical walk by and are accosted.

"One girl, like, fell into a bush," Harris said. "They're each falling and just, they conscionable get close backmost up and support running."

Harris said they person asked section carnal power for assistance to region the geese, but they've been told to beryllium diligent and there's not overmuch that tin beryllium done.

WATCH | TikTok video shows radical moving from the nesting geese:

Geese 'especially protective' during nesting season

Aggressive geese successful Waterloo is acold from a caller issue.

In 2015, a turkey was bullied by geese connected the University of Waterloo (UW) campus. The turkey flew into a 3rd level model of a gathering and died. 

That aforesaid year, immoderate students dubbed a peculiarly aggressive goose the "spawn of satan" and for respective years, idiosyncratic other astatine UW created a goose ticker representation to assistance others connected field debar the aggravated birds.

The Guelph Humane Society precocious enactment retired guidelines connected however radical should woody with Canadian geese successful the spring.

The humane nine noted nesting play lasts lone a few weeks but during that time, geese tin beryllium "especially protective."

"Geese often take nesting sites that connection wide, unfastened views to assistance them spot imaginable predators. While their choices tin sometimes astonishment us, these locations connection the information and visibility they request to successfully rise their goslings," the nine said.

The humane nine shared tips to stock abstraction with geese this spring, including:

• Give them abstraction by giving them a wide berth oregon taking an alternate route.
• Keep dogs connected a leash astir nests to support the geese from being stressed.
• Watch for families of geese connected the move. They volition locomotion their young to adjacent water.
• Be patient, arsenic astir nests are progressive for little than a period earlier geese determination along.

The humane nine noted Canada geese are protected nether the Migratory Birds Convention Act, which means it is amerciable to disturb oregon determination a nest. 

Lisa Veit, the humane society's enforcement director, said it's important to retrieve geese travel their instincts each spring.

"Returning to the aforesaid places, gathering nests, and raising their young," Veit said. "It's a singular reminder that quality is each astir us, adjacent successful busy, municipality spaces."