Nature, Put out to die,

I have been watching these Geese, they had seven goslings.. Then they went down to five, I did not see what happened to the other two. Then I started noticeing that one of the five was not growing like the rest. Then for the last week I did not see it eat for three days straight.

Then it seemed like they kept away from it, I would see the family, but not the little one, but then it would be off by it's self. Then one day I did not see it at all, I was out with the camera and came across it. All by it's self alone out in this pond, like it was forced out there to die. I watched it and took these photos and decided that is exactly what the family had done to it.

It sat there exhausted and you could see it's head was getting heavy. The gosling was having a hard time holding it's head up, then it would loose the battle and it's head would slip under the water. Air bubbles would come up and then it would fight back and bring it's head out of the water. Then the battle would start all over, it did not try to swim towards shore, it just floated there waiting for death.

I finally left and came back the next day, it had died. The flies that could not leave it alone the day before, were now all over it. The turtles were waiting near by on some logs for it also.

Poor thing, that's very sad.

omg, this just made me really depressed. nature can be cruel at times but it is just the way it goes. it is especially hard to see such a young creature in such a state...

sure would make u want to dive in and save it, but i guess you have to let nature take its course...

I've seen the same thing here at the Wetlands...one little duck will be ostracised, and it is sooo sad to see it swim happily up to a mother duck only to be pecked and chased away. I just want to rescue it!
Karen

Oh man what a sad tale. The picture you posted only tells a small part of the story, but then I looked at the rest on your link...I felt so bad looking at them, especially having read your narrative just before. Sombre subject but truly excellent documentation of it.

Now time to go meditate for a bit...

could be it was weak or sick to begin with. the mom cant risk using resources best lavished on the more fit youngsters to nurse a runt back to health. i don't mind when these things occur naturally but what i hate is when it is caused by human interference.

J.

I must have really bad timing:

1. Memorial Day. Already thinking of family/friends/heroes of our time...

2. I was watching Band of Brothers earlier. Ending gets me a little choked up...

3. I was listening to "Changes" by Tu-Pac while surfing this site...

4. Stumbled into this thread...

Thanks alot for that depressing story!

Cheers,
-John-

that is so so sad

It is sad, but looking at your slide show, this baby looked deformed, especially around the head. That may be a built in signal for it to be shunned. Even if you were able to capture it, it probably would have died.

I agree with all who have posted, it is sad. It had lived about a month, but I knew something was wrong. It was not growing like the rest and they must have know something was not right.
It was hard to edit the photos I had taken to put together the presentation. The remaining four a very healthy, and the parents gaurd them well. This is the third year this pair has had young on the pond. I do nothing but watch and photograph them. Every year, one day they just disappear.
I think this is just before the molting, and there is a huge marsh area to the east of me. I think they go there, someone once told me they saw a family of Geese crossing the main road going east.
Sorry, I did not mean to ruin anyones weekend.

you didn't. like i said, we as nature photographers must take the good with the bad and realize that it is all part of the nature that we love to much. sometimes it is hard to see a a hawk eating a young gosling or a wolf tearing a cute animal to shreds but if we try to stop it in any way, we are messing with nature's flow and that is worse than the faith of that young gosling.

Man, thats so sad.

I know how you feel, I was driving down 395 (4 lane highway each way) in Reno and look over in the center shoulder and see 2 Canadian geese with about 8 babies. I wanted to stop but I knew that:
1.I may cause an accident just by hitting my brakes
2.I may scare them into the lanes myself
3.I would distract other drivers.

I decided that human lives were more important in this case it wasn't the worth the risk to me,the geese or other drives. It was hard and ate at me, but I got over it. I never found out what happened so I still have some hope that AC got them or they got lucky and made it out alive.

Sorry for the long story but I thought it fit in this case

This happens every day in nature. You were lucky (in a sense) to capture it with images. I saw something similar last week while fishing in a lake near my house. There was a western grebe with its head slumped down, right on shore. I have never seen a grebe anywhere near dry land, so it immediately caught my eye. As I got closer, I figured it was dead. Soon I was only 10' from it, and realized it wasn't dead....yet.

Same thing you described; eyes blinking, some muscle movement, respiration's, but totally lethargic. Its head kept slipping underwater. Some bubbles would come up, the grebe would shutter, then its head would come back up. I left the area, letting it die in peace.

What was interesting was there was a great blue heron standing right over it when I first approached. That would be a mighty big meal for a heron, but who knows....

Thanks for sharing your story. A classic example of survival of the fittest.