'We couldn't quite believe it': B.C. researchers baffled after Nanaimo goose spotted in Chicago

Researchers at Vancouver Island University are baffled that a Canada goose they tagged five years ago has been spotted nearly 3,000 kilometres away in Chicago.

“At first we couldn’t quite believe it," says Eric Demers, a biology professor at VIU. "This is so out of the way."

The tagged goose was identified in October by a woman who was jogging in Chicago's Lincoln Park.

Demers contacted the woman who was able to describe the goose’s unique neck collar and code.

“It was 058P and she detailed it very clearly,” adds Demers. “All these collars are unique and are the only ones given in North America, so it can’t be another one.”

The VIU professor is unsure why the goose travelled all that way. His theory is the goose either got lost, joined other geese that were going that direction, or was pushed by a storm.

“It’s anyone's guess,” Demers says.

In 2016 and 2017, 400 Canada geese were tagged in the Nanaimo area by Demers and VIU biology student Stew Pearce.

What they found so far is the majority of the geese they tagged stay in the Nanaimo area and may venture to the mainland or go as far south as Victoria.

However, some geese have been reported as far south as Washington state and Oregon, and as far east as Alberta.

A hunter in Fort McMurray, Alta., shot one of the tagged geese from Nanaimo two years ago.

“The general expectation and what we found in our results so far are that geese move north and south,” says Demers. “So having a goose go this far east was quite surprising.”

There are two ways people can report the tagged Nanaimo geese: on the VIU Goose Project website or the Banded Birds of North America website.

Geese can live up to 20 years, so Demers expects researchers may get results like this for many years to come.