An Olds-area family has made an outstanding effort to save two orphaned Canada goose goslings on their property.
On May 17 the Hagglund family got together with officials from the Medicine River Wildlife Centre to rescue the birds from a pond on the family's property east of Olds.
The story actually began on May 11 when the family spotted two adults and five goslings that had moved onto the pond.
“After watching them for a few days, we noticed that one of the adult geese and one of the babies were missing,” said Rebecca Hagglund. “This was unusual as they always stick closely together. Later that evening we saw a fox feeding on their carcasses nearby.”
The following day, the second parent was missing and the goslings were swimming alone on the pond.
“We were quite puzzled by this and had never seen babies out on the pond without their parents. But the babies were all by themselves all day,” she said.
Later that day the family saw a raven take one of the goslings.
“We decided we must try and do something,” she said. “We tried for three hours on Thursday night and then again for a few hours Friday morning. The goslings were onto us.
“We tried approaching them quietly, playing Canada goose sounds on our iPhone, but they were not fooled. We even got out our rowboat and tried to catch them while they were swimming on the pond, but they would always dive under the water just as we got close. It just wasn't working.”
In desperation the family got in touch with Medicine River Wildlife Centre, located west of Innisfail.
“A team of three came to help us catch the goslings,” she said. “They brought with them the surrogate mother, who was in a wire cage. They placed the wire cage near the edge of the pond and we all hid nearby, hoping that the mother would hear the chirping babies and call out to them. But after waiting quite a while, it was clear that that plan was not going to work.
“We ended up putting a small electric motor on the boat and eventually the goslings wore out. The first ran into some long grass on the shore and one of the girls from the centre was able to catch it with her hands.”
The last gosling was captured the same way a short time later.
When the goslings were placed in a cage with the surrogate mother, the mother quickly took the young birds under her wing.
“The mother goose even hissed at us when we came close to take a picture, protecting her new little ones,” she said.
The goslings will be raised to adulthood at the centre and then released.
“It was an amazing experience and an exhausting one!” she said. “We couldn't believe the ability of those little goslings to keep from getting caught for so long.
“Even though we were tired out by the end of it all, we all felt as though we had been a part of something very special.”
