School district fighting pesky poop problem with cardboard cutouts of coyotes

RAYTOWN, Missouri - Schools in Raytown for more than a decade have been dealing with a problem they wish would just fly away. They think they now have a solution to keep geese from pooping all over the school playgrounds and ballparks.

Dr. Sandra Dickerson has been the principal at Robinson Elementary for the last nine years and she said the entire time she’s been working there, the geese and their droppings have been a mess.

“It would be all over the playground; our children can't come out and play because it is everywhere. We tell them not to pick it up but you know it was so prevalent that it was hard for them and they're curious,” said Dickerson.

So for health reasons, the kids were forced to stay inside for recess.

But mid February the grounds crew came up with an idea to keep the geese away. Because it’s a school the employees could not shoot the geese or poison them, so they had to get creative.

“We would do anything to get rid of the geese, but it did sound a little strange,” said Dickerson when she heard about the idea.

They’re using plywood cut outs of coyotes, which is the natural enemy of geese. In the cutouts they placed plastic bags to make them look like they were carring a goose in their mouths.

Dr. Travis Hux, the assistant superintendent of support services for the district, said they brainstormed the idea after many golf courses use cutouts of foxes and other predators to keep animals away.

“For the geese from above it appears that they’re holding a goose in their mouth and that creates a threat to the geese, so they don't land on the playground. We have giggled about it and people laugh when I tell them, but I say go check it out, you’ll notice no geese running around on the playground,” explained Hux.

For Principal Dickerson she said she’s excited that they students get to enjoy the playground once again.

“They’re gone. They are miraculously migrating somewhere else,” said Dickerson.

It has been working so well at Robinson, the district is now trying out the coyote look a likes at other schools as well.