Two baby geese recovering after driver purposely hits goose family, PA officials say
A Pennsylvania couple rushed to rescue a pair of injured baby geese after wildlife officials say a driver intentionally ran over a goose family crossing a street.
It happened “around dinner time” in York, the Raven Ridge Wildlife Center said in a May 5 news release. A witness was eating inside a restaurant when she saw “an entire family” of geese, two adults and seven goslings, “intentionally run over by a vehicle.”
Only two goslings survived and they hobbled the rest of the way across on broken legs, officials said.
“The deliberate and brutal killing of the Canada goslings and their family is a deeply disturbing and unacceptable act of cruelty towards wildlife,” the center said. “It is heart-wrenching to think that these beautiful creatures suffered at the hands of someone who intentionally chose to harm them.”
Gabbie Fisher and her wife, Katie, were driving by just seconds after the geese were hit, she told McClatchy News.
“As soon as we saw them, we didn’t even say a word to each other, my wife stopped the car in the middle of the road, put the four ways on, and we jumped out,” Fisher said.
They tended to the geese, many of which were alive but too hurt to move.
“The car that hit I believe was still there as we were doing this,” she said, adding that it was 8:20 p.m. and the vehicle’s lights were off. “And then they just drove off.”
Passersby came up to them to see what happened and, as they were talking, Fisher spotted a survivor.
“I saw the one baby by a tree, and it was limping,” she said. Her wife grabbed a sheet from the car to hold the gosling in, and as they approached, they found another baby goose hopelessly struggling “to get up on the curb, but couldn’t because of its leg,” Fisher said.
They gathered up the goslings and contacted Raven Ridge Wildlife Center. It was closed for the day, so they took care of the orphaned birds overnight and delivered them to the center the following afternoon.
The baby geese are recovering, the center said, but the person responsible for running them over has not been found.
“It is crucial that we hold those responsible accountable for their actions,” the wildlife center said, asking anyone who “witnessed this horrific act” by reaching out to the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Operation Game Thief hotline at 1-888-742-8001.
York is about a 100-mile drive west from Philadelphia.
This story was originally published May 8, 2024 at 10:51 AM with the headline "Two baby geese recovering after driver purposely hits goose family, PA officials say."