More-than-human territoriality: the contested spaces and beastly places of Canada geese in Europe’s largest urban wetland

ABSTRACT

Late modern societies have seen a surge of interest in “urban nature”, with increased efforts to protect existing nature spaces as well as invite new natures into cities through restoration, renaturing and/or greening. However, to date, there has been little discussion on the kind of nature that gets promoted through these agendas and what the implications are for unwanted or “illegitimate” creatures. Through empirical work at Europe’s largest urban wetland, Walthamstow Wetlands, and focussing on a local population of Canada geese, this paper examines how species lay claim to space and assert their agency in the practice of city renaturing. Drawing attention to the “beastly places” of unsanctioned urban wildlife, this paper challenges the scope of an urban nature reserve. In doing so, it seeks to bring a more-than-human lens to questions of urban nature, thus extending efforts to “animate the urban” in more relational and ethical ways.

KEYWORDS:

• Animal geography
• Canada geese
• greening
• more-than-human
• restoration
• rewilding
• transspecies urban theory
• urban nature
• Walthamstow Wetlands

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank all those who took part in this research, including London Wildlife Trust, Waltham Forest Council, Thames Water, local birders and anglers, and of course, the Canada geese.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. These include: damage to amenity grassland and waterside habitat such as reed beds; threatening other birdlife through grazing or trampling nesting sites; excessive fouling and eutrophic effects on water bodies; viruses they might pass on, including avian flu virus, Salmonella and E.coli. (DEFRA, 2005; Natural England, 2011).

2. The Daily Mail, for instance, labels Canada geese as “unwelcome immigrants … winged thugs … lounging around all day doing nothing, claiming every welfare benefit in the book, driving their neighbours out of town and notching up ASBOs around the clock” (The Daily Mail, 4 June 2008).

3. The UK definition of non-native is any animal “which is not ordinarily resident in and is not a regular visitor to Great Britain in a wild state” (1981). The EU definition of non-native or “alien” is a species that has been “transported outside their natural ecological range as a result of human action” (Sundseth, 2014).

4. During the 1990s, the ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) found itself the target of ornithological and nature conservation agencies intent on culling (that is, killing) its insurgent population in Britain, in order to preserve the genetic purity and species integrity of the “indigenous” European white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala) from the ruddy duck’s “aggressive” mating habits (Lawson, 1997).

5. It is not clear why numbers fluctuated so much between 2006 and 2009. However, London Wildlife Trust note that these numbers need to be considered in light of the fact that geese are mobile creatures and move within the Lea Valley and so the numbers recorded at any one site may be part of a mobile population that uses a multiplicity of sites over a large area at any one time (London Wildlife Trust, 2017).

6. In addition, the project implemented a “no feeding” on site: this was seen as “essential to prevent habitualisation by geese to some areas” (London Wildlife Trust, 2017, p. 6). There was also a desire to reduce the availability of angling bait, which presumably Canada geese feed on, although it was not clear if or how this would be implemented.