Yesterday while walking home from work I wandered past a goose who was happily eating a pile of bread obviously left for it on the sidewalk. A little later a neighbor knocked on our door and asked if we could help, because the goose had wandered into their yard and wasn’t leaving. Worried that the animal might be sick or injured, we contacted some folks at Mickaboo and asked if anyone knew how to help a wild animal. The best we could come up with was to drive the goose to the shelter in Martinez and leave it in one of the overnight drop boxes. Ug. I’ve done that before with a dog, and I didn’t ever want to do that again. And since we didn’t know if the goose was actually injured or simply lazy, we decided to wait until morning and see if it was still there.
It was. So Raelene, being the wonderful caring soul that she is, lured the goose into our back yard and started contacting agencies to see what type of help we could get for the animal. She also put out food, which it enjoyed, and water, which it really, really wanted. My guess is the goose had been wandering around the neighborhood for a while, and people had been caring enough to feed it but no one thought to give it any water.
Eventually Raelene was put in touch with WildRescue, a central coast non-profit that rescues wild animals like our goose. WildRescue volunteers were here within the hour to take the goose to a facility in Fairfield. It turns out the goose was injured, with wounds on it’s leg and possibly wing. The goose was still very strong, and so chances for it are good. We should get a status update tomorrow.
And this is why Raelene is my hero. 🙂