Hammond and Whiting residents and environmentalists are calling for more transparency after several dead geese, ducks and other birds were found recently around Wolf Lake.

“We’re just asking for more of a time frame,” said Marisa Rowden, administrator for the environmental group Save Whiting and Neighbors (S.W.A.N.), formed in 2019. “Let us know if there’s something going on. Let us know as a community that’s kayaking out here.”

“Those geese are big and if it’s something naturally causing it, we’re not pointing fingers. We just want to be in the know,” she said, one of 10 protesters off Calumet Avenue in Hammond’s Robertsdale section near Wolf Lake Friday.

They were galvanized by recent reports of dead geese, ducks and fish at Wolf Lake that the Indiana Department of Natural Resources said it received dating back to mid-February. The cause is still under investigation.

“Save Whiting And Neighbors (S.W.A.N.) members and many others are waiting for the necropsy lab reports on the Canada geese that were collected the week of Feb. 22 and delivered to the U.S.G.S.

National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin,” environmentalist Carolyn Marsh wrote.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said in a statement the city’s March 11 water sampling around Wolf Lake, and soil tests for toxic metals using an X-ray fluorescence analyzer did not turn up anything unusual.

“Many different theories have been put forth as the cause including the harsh winter weather in February, an avian cholera outbreak (for the bird deaths), as well as nonnatural, human-made causes,” he said.

The Hammond Department of Environmental Management took 21 soil samples on the north and east shore of Wolf Lake’s channel. All results, verified by an outside lab, were below remediation standards, McDermott said.

What some residents reported as sludge was actually some fill the Hammond Port Authority was using for a planned parking lot project by the pavilion this summer, McDermott said. The city also took five soil samples from fill near the pavilion’s south parking lot, he said. The material had “very low” levels of metals that were within range for that use. It was recently moved there and “not related” to the birds’ deaths, he said.

A self-proclaimed “lover of birds,” McDermott said, “I continue to be concerned about the death of migratory birds found in and around Wolf Lake.”

Leo Mores, 60, of Robertsdale, said he was ice fishing when he found two dead birds in late February. Days later, he went back and found at least 20 dead birds that appeared to be geese, ducks and coots in early March, then called the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

One of the first geese he found had a tracking band, which he later found out was an 11-year-old bird from Canada, he said. The second time he went back, dead birds were “all along the shoreline,” he said. “It was all concentrated.”

About 10 of those were “banded here in Lake County,” he said. “The thing is they didn’t come down with that disease (avian cholera).”

He was skeptical avian cholera was the cause, since reports in Gibson County near Kentucky involved migratory birds, Mores said.

“They are snow geese,” he said. “That’s a whole different ballgame.”

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources and Indiana Department of Environmental Management announced March 4 they were investigating the bird and fish deaths, according to a joint release. The agencies are examining all possibilities, including natural causes. They have asked the public to avoid the area while the investigation is ongoing.

DNR has taken bird samples and IDEM was seen taking water samples, Hammond Port Authority Director Milan Kruszynski said previously.

Seeing dead fish following extreme cold is not necessarily uncommon, he continued. What caused the deaths will be unknown until the testing has concluded.

The state DNR said March 2 it detected avian cholera in geese in Gibson County, where 176 birds were found dead since January. Of thousands of birds, the incidence rate appeared to be low, officials said. But, it could mean dead geese could be “found in small areas,” the release stated.

It was the second time avian cholera turned up in wild birds in Indiana, the DNR said. Caused by bacteria, the disease spreads by bird-to-bird contact and through food and water. Overall, it should not have a “significant effect” on flocks, while the risk to human health there was minimal, officials said.

“Infected birds die quickly, but people might see diseased geese exhibiting lethargy and abnormal behavior,” a spokesperson said.