A 68-year-old Ottawa man is facing animal cruelty charges after a gosling was allegedly stomped to death outside a business in the city’s west end.
The Ottawa Police Service launched an animal cruelty investigation on Wednesday into reports a gosling had died.
Police said it appeared that Canada geese laid eggs in the 400 block of Hazeldean Road in Kanata, and “on May 21, a suspect stomped on one of the hatched babies.”
On Friday, police said the man is facing a charge of causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal. The name of the accused was not released.
The geese and goslings were in a planter outside a store in Kanata.
Wild Birds Unlimited Kanata said at some point, an individual agitated the mother goose.
“So, there was an individual that was walking down the sidewalk and provoked the female goose, who then left the nest,” Kindell Tolmie, owner of Wild Birds Unlimited Kanata, told CTV News Ottawa on Thursday. “The baby gosling followed its mom and at that time, this individual stepped on it repeatedly.”
Safe Wings Ottawa has safely relocated both parents and the two surviving babies to a pond in Kanata. Video showed the geese and goslings in the water this week.
Two Canada Geese and two surviving goslings were relocated to a pond in Kanata on Wednesday. Ottawa police are investigating the death of a gosling on Tuesday. (Wild Birds Unlimited/submitted)
–With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Dave Charbonneau