Wildlife Rescue Volunteers Help Goslings Born on Rooftops

This time of year, wildlife is searching for safe nesting spots to breed and raise their young so they can safely grow into adulthood to explore the wild.  The young face many natural challenges including predator attacks, poor weather conditions, and low food resources. Urbanization causes loss of natural habitat and all these variables contribute to furthering ongoing challenges for wildlife survival.

Rooftops especially those with greenery, ponds, and pools have become a popular, attractive nesting site for some parents. These rooftops mimic natural environments for parents who choose to raise their young in hopes to protect them from potential predators from attacking. However, parents do not realize that these rooftops are dangerous for their newly hatched goslings, preventing them from leaving the rooftop safely.

In the wild, the goslings would be jumping from their nesting sites to a soft substrate however when high atop buildings this is not the case thus leading to potentially fatal outcomes or severe internal injuries.

There is no architecture design to help prevent wildlife from nesting on these sites, but you can help do your part in your communities or buildings so we can safely rescue and release these goslings to water-accessible locations near where they are rescued.

We want to be proactive and diligent in the timing so we can get them off the roof as soon as possible. Staff and trained rooftop rescue volunteers either capture parents who may have abandoned the gosling during the rescue. Holding the goslings, the parents hear their chirping and return to collect their babies. If parents remain present during the rescue, we take both to kennels to a safe space.

Last week, Wildlife Rescue Support Centre received a call regarding a geese family stranded on a rooftop in Vancouver, BC. Read the full story by Kevin, Griffin from the Vancouver Sun on how Wildlife Rescue rooftop rescue team gives the stranded goslings and a parent a chance to survive.

If during the rescue any of the parents or goslings appear dehydrated, in distress, or appear to be injured we will bring them to our hospital and do a health check before safely returning them to their location. Our goal is to help them survive and we do this with your help by were preventing injury, rescuing and releasing them immediately

 Here is what you can do to help these babies survive

•  Keep at a distance. Goslings and ducklings are susceptible to imprinting (they can become attached to humans.)
• Ask for help. If you see young ducklings or goslings on a busy street call your local non-emergency police line to slow traffic. Do not try to catch them on your own or you could be putting yourself and others at risk with traffic considerations.
• Please contact our Support Centre for assistance if you spot injured duckling or goslings and follow the COVID-19 protocols.

Read the full gosling rescue story by Kevin, Griffin from the Vancouver Sun here!

Help baby goslings survive today!

Posted in Education
Tags: canada goose, goslings, rescue volunteers, rescue wildlife, rooftop rescue, spring babies, wildlife babies, wildlife rescue bc, wildlife volunteers