If you’ve ever had a run-in with a goose, you know they can be territorial. Oh, who are we kidding? Geese can be mean! As a childhood victim of a goose chase, I can attest to their foul streak. If I close my eyes and recall the moment, the memory of those splayed wings and loud honks coming right for me still gives me a shiver.
So when a goose pecked on a cop’s patrol car door, the officer probably thought he was about to get blasted by the feathered one. But as it turns out, the mama goose in question needed help for her gosling. Still, Cincinnati PD Police Sergeant James Givens wasn’t sure when the goose first came knocking.
Tapping for Help
Relating the tale of what turned out to be a gosling rescue to WCPO 9, Sgt. Givens explained he was taking a quiet minute to enjoy a cup of coffee in a parking lot near Mill Creek when a goose started pecking on his driver’s side door.
“I thought maybe it was hungry,” said Sgt. Givens. “I tossed a little piece of bread out the window, but she didn’t eat the bread, and she kept pecking, then walked away, came back, pecked again.”
That’s when Givens followed the worried goose, and as he explained, “She took me straight to the baby. It was tangled up.”
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And it wasn’t just a piece of twine that had the gosling by the leg, but a plastic ribbon attached to a mylar balloon. Sgt. Givens radioed for animal rescue, but with no one available, fellow officer Cecilia Charron arrived on the scene. And seeing the gosling in need of help, she went right to work, trying to gather up the baby to get the balloon string unwrapped from its leg and cute little webbed foot.
Saving the Day
Things took a tense turn when Mama Goose charged Officer Charron. Even Sgt. Givens backs up behind the lens, thinking this was the moment attack would come. But as Officer Charron explained, the mother was only diverting the baby from running into the water with the balloon string still attached.
“It was going toward Mill Creek, so Mommy went and diverted it,” said Officer Charron. “I stepped on the balloon, and then I picked up the baby.” With gosling in hand, Charron set to unwinding the string, and “it was just wrapped and wrapped and wrapped.”
But after a few careful minutes of unraveling the string with the sound of worried honking as a serenade, Charron had the baby free and on its way!
Rather than running to the mama goose, the gosling dashed past her and headed for the water. In the end, though, the baby was rescued, and the goose mother was relieved. Both swam away, no harm, no fowl. And both cops made it free of the situation without being charged by angry geese!
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Feature Image: James Givens/YouTube
Toledo, United States.
