Each summer, sun-starved Finns flock to Hietsu Beach, a sandy stretch in Helsinki, to exercise, splash and attempt to tan.
Amid a late July, record-breaking heat wave, a very different flock has also been stalking the surf around Finland’s capital: barnacle geese — white-faced, black-backed and ever-present. At night, they roost by the water’s edge. Come daytime, as people spread out their towels, they waddle away, leaving small mountains of excrement in their tracks.
“There can be a shocking amount of poop,” acknowledged Jukka Lundgren, the manager of Helsinki’s public beaches, who has spent 15 of his 18 years on the job trying to keep the sand from looking like a goose litter box.
