Theft a wild goose chase
Dave Brooks
Several alleged “goose-nappings” at Huntington Beach’s Central Park
have residents fearing for the safety of the park’s birds.
The details are murky, but several frequent park visitors say a
family of six or seven white geese known to frequent the park have
been reduced to four, with at least one reported to police as having
been stolen.
On May 13, a woman reported seeing several males put a pillow case
over the head of a goose and carry it out of the park and into a van
before driving away.
“By the time the officers got there, the witness was gone,”
Huntington Beach Police Lt. Craig Juniger said. “We just took a
report on what we had heard. Since then we’ve beefed up patrols
around Central Park.”
Two other geese remain unaccounted for -- troubling news to
patrons of Alice’s Breakfast in the Park, a small cafe overlooking
Lake Huntington where the geese were known to have nesting grounds.
“(The other geese) were so upset when one of the geese went
missing,” restaurant proprietor Alice Gustafson said. “For days the
geese just stood in the parking lot, crying and whimpering.”
On any given day, dozens of ducks, pigeons and water fowl crowd
around the cafe, where patrons can buy bird food and are encouraged
to feed the animals. The geese were a famous attraction around the
restaurant, often crowding around a patron and nipping at their legs
until a worker in the restaurant would run out with a broom and scare
the birds off.
“The kids really loved them, but they do bite,” said Mary Beth
Pierce, Gustafson’s daughter. “They were extremely territorial,
especially when they’re nesting.”
The birds have a lot of personality, Gustafson said.
“They were ornery and could be annoying,” she said. “But I think
they’ve changed a lot since this has all happened.”
On Tuesday morning, the geese were huddled together on a small
pathway in the park, a safe distance from a senior’s group taking
part in a morning exercise routine. Any time a person would get
within about 20 feet of them , the birds would begin squawking loudly
-- strange behavior for geese that used to allow children to pet
them, restaurant manager Anne Greenfield said.
As for the other missing geese, their whereabouts remain unknown.
Coyotes are known to occasionally roam the park at night, and have
been linked to several wild bird deaths on Lake Huntington.
The white geese at Central Park are most likely either Ross geese
or snowy geese. The park is along their migratory route.
Park geese are often subject to attack and abuse, Debbie McGuire
of the Wetlands Wildlife Care Center said. After the holidays, she
said she finds a lot of geese that have been shot with air rifles and
BB guns.
“Kids will get them close and then beat them with sticks,” she
said. “I’ve seen parents watching their kids and not doing anything
to stop them.”
Part of the problem, McGuire said, is that once the geese rely on
people for food, they may lose their fear of humans
“Because there are so few geese, people tend to notice when they
go missing,” she said. “All water fowl get abused at parks.”
In 1997, 10 ducks, a heron and a goose were shot dead with pellet
guns at TeWinkle Park in Costa Mesa. Two more geese and three ducks
were killed in a 2000 pellet-gun attack and last March, the famous
Mr. and Mrs. Peepers along with eight other geese were removed from
the park out of concern over the birds’ safety.
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