'They were running all over the highway': OPP rescues orphaned goslings

Goslings rescued by OPP on Highway 400 An OPP officer responding to a call on Highway 400 ended up stopping for an unlikely rescue.

Six baby Canada geese were rescued by an Ontario Provincial Police officer after their parents were run over on a busy multi-lane Ontario highway earlier this week.

OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt says an officer responding to a call spotted the goslings on the side of Highway 400 on Monday morning.

“One of the parents was dead and five or six goslings were running around,” he tells CTV News Toronto.

Schmidt says the patrol officer called in help from road staff with the Ministry of Transportation.

When they arrived on scene, they assisted the officer in saving the birds. But Schmidt says time was running out. The 400 is a busy multi-lane highway and the posted speed limit is 100 km/h.

“Unfortunately, when the officer and the MTO staff were trying to get the goslings, the second parent was struck and killed,” Schmidt said. “The officer was able to scoop up the six goslings.”

He placed them in a cardboard box in the back of his cruiserand gave them water and grass clippings.

The now-orphaned goslings were disoriented and frightened, Schmidt says. They needed to be taken somewhere safe so police made a call to the Toronto Wildlife Centre.

“Our goal is to put these goslings with a new family,” the wildlife centre’s Executive Director Natalie Karvonen says.

Karvonen says one of the goslings died when it arrived at the centre but the remaining five are doing well. “They lost their parents. They have a strong drive to follow them everywhere and eat with them,” she adds. “It can be traumatic on them."

The next step, Karvonen says is to place the orphaned goslings back in the wild. Staff at the centre will seek out Canada Geese families in area parks or ravines that will adopt them. “We introduce them one at a time to a family that will accept them. Canada geese are great at this, and are willingly to accept a new gosling in the group,” she says.

The timeframe depends on how fast the goslings recover. Karvonen says they are eating well and getting stronger. Staff are hoping all five goslings will be with new families by next week. “The only barrier now is just how busy we are. We deal with more than 300 different species and May and June are the busiest months of the year,” she says.

Schmidt says OPP officers are used to situations like this. He says they never know what their day will be like. But he’s happy an officer helped make a difference in “saving some frightened little geese that were lost and scared on the highway.”