The days of geese ruling over Lakeville Lake are over.

On March 18, the Addison Township Board voted 7-0 to approve a resolution that will allow the Lakeville Lake Property Owners Association (LLPOA) to take measures that will, they hope, remove the excess of geese from the area.

“We on the LLPOA board have received a number of complaints from residents about the over population of geese on Lakeville Lake,” said Gregory Smith, a director on the LLPOA board. “It’s not so much the overpopulation counts as the remainders that they leave behind.”

Smith said, “the boardwalks, the docks, the DNR (boat launch) are just covered in goose waste” and that the feathery animals have started to raise safety and health concerns among lake residents.

“I walk (at the Salvation Army Camp) every once in a while, and the playgrounds are just covered,” Smith said. “They’re bringing in underprivileged kids from Pontiac, Detroit and so on and we’re concerned about health.We’re concerned about safety.”

The LLPOA, which will pay for the entire project, will work with the Holly-based Goose Busters to relocate a number of the geese to an area designated by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Smith stressed that no geese will lose their lives in the process but will simply be taken to a new home.

Though Smith appeared confident that no geese would be killed, he assured concerned parties like Supervisor Bruce Pearson that if euthanasia became part of the equation, LLPOA would pull out.

“I understand a very legitimate concern has been raised regarding euthanizing any of the geese,” he said. “It is a relocation program, that’s what we’re signing up for… If euthanizing is any part of the goose relocation, we will not participate.”

Pearson noted that if any geese were to be euthanized, the LLPOA would need to acquire the signatures of 70 percent of Lakeville Lake’s residents saying they support such a measure.

Smith said that, though the geese’s nests will be destroyed upon removal, Goose Busters will take great care with handling the animals.

“This is our first attempt to do something and it’s a fairly standard process,” he said. “There’s two parts, one is the destruction of the nests, that will happen probably in April, and then in June (Goose Busters) will round up the geese very humanly and (they) will relocate them to an area designated by the DNR.”

According to Smith, it could take anywhere between three and five years to keep the removed geese from coming back. Because of that, Trustee Linda Gierak suggested Lakeville Lake residents take some habitat measures of their own.

“Right now, the geese have a straight shot from the lawn into the water,” she said. “If there’s any shrubbery or plantings, anything like that, they’ll tend to go somewhere else because they don’t have that clear shot.”

The removal process is scheduled to start next month.