Warning: Some details in this story may be disturbing for some readers.
A Vancouver man was spending a quiet Sunday morning watching a family of Canada geese from his balcony when tragedy struck.
Mychaylo Prystupa, who lives in Olympic Village, said it was around 9 a.m. when he spotted a large group of baby geese waddling across Quebec Street and E 1st Avenue.
He thought to himself, "Oh wow, I gotta shoot this."
Prystupa is a marketing filmmaker and naturally pulled out his camera to start documenting the moment.
"I pull up my camera, put on a tripod, and start shooting it, not knowing what was about to happen," he said.
The family of geese moved next to the bike path. Prystupa believes a nearby road was closed for the day so there was less vehicle traffic in the area.
"While I was filming, a bike went whizzing through and unfortunately, hit and fatally struck one of the goslings and I watched it all in real-time," he told Lodestar Media. "This poor baby gosling was waddling and in despair."
Prystupa filmed a video of the mother going over to her injured offspring and all of its siblings waddling over.
"Can you imagine having 20 or 30 kids and they're all confused as to why their sibling is dying? It was heartbreaking to watch," he said.
The footage shows an injured goose lying in the bike path unable to get up with an injured wing.
"The mother goose had to make a decision: this place looks awfully dangerous, I have to get the rest of my kids out of here,” said Prystupa. “They just left the dying gosling baby behind, unfortunately."
Prystupa decided to go down to the street and see how he could help.
"A lot of people around the neighbourhood watched this poor baby goose die."
A person who had gloves moved the bird into a grassy area off the bike path. Another person called to have someone come pick it up.
"This cyclist went right through and didn't stop ... that is also heartbreaking," said Prystupa. "You'd think if someone strikes and kills wildlife, that they might want to stop, but they didn’t."
The entire experience has left him wondering about the welfare of Canada geese in the city.
"It got me thinking... I wonder what the city could do to consider the welfare of these geese," he said. "It's almost like it’s an unfortunate consequence of urban life and I don't know what the solution is."
For the next few days, Prystupa couldn’t stop thinking about the geese.
"We love the Canadian geese. They are like an icon for our country. But what can we do?"
A Vancouver park board spokesperson said that if people see geese on a road or pathway, slow down and let them cross.
The park board does monitor the size and distribution of resident geese and has noted a steady increase in numbers over the last several decades.
"Our current approach to population management uses egg addling to limit population growth," said the spokesperson.
Egg addling in Vancouver involves shaking newly laid eggs in a nest, so fewer goslings will be born.
Nests can be reported to the city during the spring and people should not feed any of the geese.
Anyone who witnesses dead or injured geese can report it to 311 or online.
