In Lake Waukomis, a small lakeside town just north of Kansas City, summer days are quiet — too quiet for some — and for good reason.
All their geese died.
Well, not all. There are still about 30 left. But in June, 150 Canada geese were captured in a massive “geese roundup.” The geese had been deemed a growing nuisance and health concern for the hamlet’s 1,000 residents by the lake’s homeowners association. The geese were loaded onto trucks and then transported to a processing plant, where their meat was donated to food banks.
While Canada geese are federally protected, the hunt is entirely legal, conducted with a permit and authorized as managed as a last resort by the Missouri Department of Conservation, which says the Wacomis hunt is the largest of five such efforts conducted in the Kansas City area this year.
Some Wacomis residents are outraged that so many geese were taken and killed.
“It’s like buying a beach house: Buy a shotgun and shoot all the seagulls,” said Michael Riney, a 15-year resident whose home is on the north side of the 90-acre lake. “One goose poop on the lawn can freak some people out.
“I think it’s really harsh. I don’t understand why they would move to the lake if they hate the geese and the birds and the deer and everything. Why do they live here?”
While it’s now rare to see Canada geese on the lake, it may be even harder to find residents who lament their disappearance. Residents say the problem isn’t that they don’t like the geese — but that they don’t like their droppings.
The main complaint is that the flock of 150 geese creates countless piles of green manure (whose color, by the way, comes from the grass the geese eat) on lawns and boats, sometimes covering the entire pier. On average, an adult goose eats four pounds of grass a day, which produces three pounds of droppings.
“We’ve always known they’re a nuisance. They poop everywhere,” resident Cindy Pounds said. “How can you swim in a lake with all that stuff? They just make a huge mess of the pier.”
Goose droppings are packed with E. coli, which is harmless in small amounts but can cause diarrhea, cramps and vomiting in high concentrations.
“All of their waste is E. coli,” said Joe DeBold, a wildlife hazard biologist for the state Department of Conservation, which covers 21 surrounding counties. “When you consider that they spend at least 70 percent of their time on the water, you can imagine how much is getting into the water itself.”
“We’ve always known they’re a nuisance. They just poop everywhere,” said a Wacomis Lake resident, where 150 Canada geese were captured in June and euthanized as part of wildlife management with permission from the Missouri Department of Conservation.
The conservation agency notes that through mating, “a breeding pair of Canada geese can increase to more than 50 birds in just five years.” DeBold said the agency, authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, issues what’s called a “take and euthanize” permit only as a last resort when all other methods of controlling growing goose populations have failed.
Clarence Matthews, a Lake Wacomis resident, said his neighbors have tried to scare the geese away with laser pointers and dogs. “We get them out of our yard, but they keep coming back,” Matthews said.
People remodel their lawns to keep the grass long; geese prefer short grass.
Matthews coordinates the homeowners association’s egg-poisoning efforts, which involve finding the shells of newly laid goose eggs and coating them with oil, a deadly and permit-required procedure that denies oxygen to the developing embryos.
When goslings are born, “they mark the area,” DeBold said. “The area where they hatch is the area where they mark. So when they reach sexual maturity, they come back and do the same thing. So you have these isolated populations that just keep growing and growing.”
Not only does the introduction of eggs reduce populations, it can also cause adult geese to move away, deciding that the area is not suitable for raising goslings.
“I’ve been processing eggs for about six years,” Matthews said. “In the past two years alone, I’ve processed a little over 100 eggs a year.”
That helped a lot, but the population still grew.
“Then in the fall, when the weather changed and it got colder and the geese came, we had what we call bangers,” he said. “It’s like a starting pistol, you set off a firecracker on the end to encourage the migratory birds to stay. Either way, the population grew.”
Lake Wacomis in Platte County is owned by the municipality but managed by a homeowners association. Matthews said the goose population had grown so much that residents approached the association’s conservation committee, which approved hiring a company with a conservation permit called Wildlife Damage Solutions.
The geese are collected in June or July during their molting period when they cannot fly.
DeBold said he approved four other capture and euthanasia permits in the Kansas City area this summer: Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department, Belton Parks and Recreation Department, Oceans of Fun Department and The Ridge of Blue Springs Department.
“Those are the ones that were approved this year,” DeBold said. “Next time we might have one, next we might have three, next we might have none.”
While this summer’s hunt at Lake Wacomis was not as large as this one, it paled in comparison to previous hunts, such as one along Brush Creek less than a decade ago, when 1,000 Canada geese were taken over a two-year period: 500 the first year and 500 the second.
Once the geese are harvested, if they find a body of water that they like, other geese will make it their home, and the population will inevitably grow back, although this can take several years.
At one point, a video of the roundup was posted on Lake Waukomis’ social media pages, but it was removed after receiving critical comments.
Residents Jen and Tony Solis reasoned that many, if not most, of those criticizing the roundup don’t live on the lake and don’t have to endure the pollution and potential health hazards.
“We had one gentleman,” Jen Solis said of a resident with lung disease, “who couldn’t even go outside because the geese situation was so bad.”
Besides E. coli, feces can contain parasites, disease-causing bacteria and fungal spores, which can lead to lung diseases such as histoplasmosis if overexposed. Geese can also be aggressive towards humans. She has grandchildren.
“The people who are against it like a lot of things, but they don’t know all the drawbacks,” she said.
Neighbor Riney is also among those opposed.
“People hate geese,” he said of the animals. “I understand if it’s a health issue. It’s crazy. There just aren’t that many of them.”
That’s true.