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.