2 Domestic Geese On Loose On LI Beach Found Safe, Need New Home

RIVERHEAD, NY — Two domestic geese on the loose on a Long Island beach were brought to safety this week.

According to John Di Leonardo, president and executive director of Humane Long Island, the geese, abandoned at Roanoke Beach in Riverhead, are a bonded pair that would swim off during the day, "presumably to look for whoever dumped them, but always return to where they were abandoned, apparently hoping their owner would return."

On Thursday, thanks to a local pair, Tess and Kerry, who found them, the geese are "now safe and looking for a new home, with a family who will always love them and never abandon them."

He added: "Domestic ducks and geese are sensitive individuals, not school science experiments, Easter props or objects to be discarded like trash. Abandoning domestic fowl is cruel and illegal, and no different than abandoning a dog or a cat. When they’re abandoned to fend for themselves, they often freeze to death, starve or are killed by predators, as they lack the skills to adequately forage and the ability to fly or migrate."

Di Leonardo said a good Samaritan first spotted the two domestic geese wandering east from the Roanoke Avenue beach.

Humane Long Island arrived less than 30 minutes later, but the geese were nowhere to be seen, he said — until Tess and Kerry saved the day.

"Just like our companion and farmed animals, domestic waterfowl were domesticated by humans thousands of years ago," Di Leonardo said. "Years of selective breeding have produced waterfowl vastly different from their wild counterparts, both physiologically and psychologically, just like dogs and wolves. Bred for either egg or meat production, domestic ducks have tiny wings, large bodies and generally no camouflage. They typically cannot fly, and they can never migrate — literally sitting ducks for predators and cruel people when abandoned to the wild."

Domestic ducks and geese also lack the survival instincts of wild birds; many were raised in incubators and never learned even limited skills from their mother, he said.

When abandoned on ponds, they do not know how to forage for naturally occurring food and often starve to death, Di Leonardo added.

"They are routinely attacked and killed by predators, including raccoons, foxes, snapping turtles, and cruel humans," he said. "Most die within the first few days of being dumped. If they make it until winter, they face diminishing natural food sources and frozen ponds and cannot migrate to find water. These abandoned animals often become frozen in place on the ice. Those who don’t succumb to the elements may be rounded up and killed by exterminators."

In addition, Di Leonardo said abandoning domestic ducks can also be problematic for ecosystems.
"When introduced into nature, non-native species disrupt natural ecosystems, which rely on the migratory behavior of wild ducks and geese and the natural recovery period that comes with their absence. As domestic waterfowl eat not only the roughage of plants but their entire root structure, native plants are particularly at risk from starving ducks who eat voraciously trying futilely to meet the calories they need to survive once abandoned," he said.

Should domestic ducks or geese try to breed with wild birds, their offspring will likely be flightless as well, further disrupting the ecosystem and exposing the young to the same dangers as their domestic parent, he said.

And, he pointed out, "not only is domestic waterfowl abandonment cruel, but it's illegal, punishable by a $1,000 fine or a year in jail."

Anyone interested in giving the geese a safe and loving home, is asked to DM Humane Long Island on Facebook "with pictures of your predator-proof, climate-proof setup."