Value City Deals with Angry Goose – Enraging Animal Activists [POLL]

Sometimes you just can’t win.

A couple of Canada geese (which by the way didn’t get their name from Canada, but by a doctor who’s name is Canada) made their nest in a planter outside a Value City store in Middletown, much to the chagrin of the store’s customers, who claimed the geese would hiss at them if they tried to enter.

So what option do store officials have, short of shooting them in plain sight, which is not something I’d endorse anyway.

Border collies perhaps?

No, they actually got permission from the Division of Fish and Wildlife to remove their nest and destroy the eggs therein.

And then the fun began!

God bless social media, as word got out about the action store officials had taken.

According to this:

Value City Furniture officials said Monday that goose attacks spurred the destruction of a nest and eggs of two Canada geese, a move that sparked protests from some animal rights activists.

Activists took to social media and made numerous calls to the township store after news broke late Sunday that employees had destroyed the nest and eggs of two geese that made its parking lot their home.

“The geese were attacking our customers,” said Mitch Keller, Value City Furniture marketing director.

The female of the pair had nested and laid eggs in a planter outside the store. The goose had been nesting there for eight years, said Dawn Samhammer of ­Middletown, who was appalled by the destruction of the eggs.

Samhammer said she looked forward to seeing the goose — whom she named Gertrude — roam the store’s parking lot each spring.

But others were not enamored with the animal, said Tim Brodie, regional manager for Value City Furniture.

“We’ve been putting up with them because they weren’t aggressive,” he said. “This year, they happened to become very aggressive.”

Brodie and Keller said the geese were hissing at store customers and would linger outside the store’s front door, frightening shoppers.

“They (the geese) were affecting the people getting into the store,” Brodie said. “Not that we wanted to be cruel, but we have to continue our business.”

Because of the animals’ behavior, store officials received a permit from the state Division of Fish and Wildlife to remove the nest and destroy the eggs, Keller said.

The division issues homeowners and property managers free permits to destroy eggs and nests. The destruction is permitted annually between March 1 and June 30.

But Samhammer felt that destroying the eggs was unnecessary, contending that the store entrance was on the opposite side of the building from the nest.

“Who’s going to be afraid of one male goose? It’s not like there’s a flock there,” she said.

Keller said the move was needed because someone was feeding the geese and had left a bowl with food near the nest.

Store employees have blocked the geese from nesting in the planter by placing fencing around the former nest and sticking stakes into the planter.

Such cruel and unusual punishment…wouldn’t you say?

Almost as cataclysmic as what happened to one wayward goose at Great Adventure last year.

In the end, the store officials did the right thing in calling the Division of Fish and Wildlife to go in and destroy the eggs.

Or at the very least, they could have given the eggs to Dawn Samhammer, the animal activist, and she could have given each one a name of its own.