Wounded goose evades capture for four months
Animal rescue group amazed at bird's survival
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, August 02, 2007

They are one of Canada's most widely reviled exports -- the hissing, pooping scourge of summer across the United States, in parts of Europe and Asia, and even as far off as New Zealand.

Canada geese are routinely targeted the world over (their namesake nation included) for abatement or culling by frustrated municipal officials and wildlife authorities, who try everything -- barking dog teams, egg-addling birth-control blitzes, bitter-tasting "goose-be-gone" grass spray, even buckshot -- to rid themselves of the avian nuisance.

All of which makes the extraordinary efforts in Britain to save the life of a single, conspicuously wounded Canada goose so remarkable.

The heart-rending saga has gone on for nearly four months, ever since the residents of Northampton first caught sight of a handsome gander swimming nonchalantly in a pond with a mate at its side -- and a poacher's arrow sunk straight into its chest.

To the general amazement of a would-be animal rescue unit -- which, despite numerous attempts, has been unable to capture the bird and give it veterinary care -- the impaled goose has survived not only the initial piercing of its breast but also the infections that must surely have taken hold at times during the ordeal.

Yet it lives, a testament to the hardiness of the creature and the twist of fate that has all of Britain pulling for this one pitiable bird.

"I have no idea how it has survived," Roy Marriott, the bird's chief pursuer, told CanWest News Service.

This week, Marriott and other volunteers from the charitable group Animals in Need will try again to gently snare the injured goose, last seen a few days ago in a city pond with the arrow lodged just below its neck but now bent at an awkward angle, presumably causing even more trouble and soreness.

The crooked arrow is likely causing the bird "a bit of pain," Marriott said.

Officials with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have advised Marriott's group that if the goose is captured, the arrow should be trimmed rather than pulled out.

"It's been in him now for so long," he said. "So we're not going to try to remove it because more infections could take place with it out."

© The Calgary Herald 2007