This goose decoy sits on a power pole in Salmon Arm.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Lynn Stanley

A fake goose on a power line in the Shuswap temporarily tricked a Salmon Arm resident and sparked the interest of people in the area.

Lynn Stanley has been watching birds while on walks in her neighbourhood for years and is familiar with their patterns.

She posted a photo of what turned out to be a goose decoy on a power pole after getting duped herself. 

“This fall I noticed the goose on the post and thought ‘there is a silly goose up there,’ it must have been October,” Stanley said. “I’d go by a week or two later and think ‘oh, the darn thing is there again.’ I finally stopped and realized it can’t be real.”

The Canada goose decoys can be found on power lines throughout the province as part of an attempt by BC Hydro to deter osprey from nesting on power line poles which can cause power outages and fires. 

FortisBC has installed roughly 80 nesting poles across the Southern Interior since 2005 for the osprey to use instead but sometimes a platform is taken over by a Canada goose during nesting season in spring, pushing the osprey to move to the power poles.

"The decoys are not used to scare away the osprey, they are used to deter other geese from taking the osprey's nests on the platforms," Susan Edgelll with BC Hydro said.

"Nests on power poles are a fire hazard and get in the way of maintenance crews. We work to keep the osprey on the platforms where it's safe." 

READ MORE: Despite warmer weather, Kelowna’s birds aren’t sticking around this winter

Stanley said the goose decoy in her photo is located close to a “huge osprey nest” that geese and osprey have been sharing for years.

“Every spring the geese move in at the end of February and are usually gone by the time the osprey come closer to April, but it depends on the weather and overlap can happen," she said.

BC Hydro can’t kick the goose out of the nest as they are a federally protected species while ospreys are provincially protected.

Stanley said she has yet to see a goose and an osprey fight like the two species did in a nest in Lake Country in the spring of 2021.

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