What would snatch an adolescent Sebastopol gosling at 4:30 in the afternoon (today) while on the cre

[jodybelle]

My husband thought he saw a river otter or mink this afternoon at about 4:30 down near the creek where our ducks and Sebastopol goslings spend the day. Now we're missing our male gosling

. What do you think?

 

[Eggsoteric]

Snapping turtle could also be a possibility.

 

[jodybelle]

I thought about that but the gosling was bigger than our 3 grown ducks.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I thought about that but the gosling was bigger than our 3 grown ducks.

Otters are only mink writ large. An otter is more than capable of making off with a young goose. So are foxes, coyotes, bobcats, etc. Search up stream and down stream for an area where the culprit stopped to enjoy your goose dinner.

It makes it extremely difficult to help when the poster neglects to inform us about what part of the world they live in.

 

[jodybelle]

Sorry chickengeorgeto, we live in NE Iowa. The creek is Beaver Creek in Plymouth, Iowa. I appreciate your help.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Sorry chickengeorgeto, we live in NE Iowa. The creek is Beaver Creek in Plymouth, Iowa. I appreciate your help.

In that case all of the varmints I listed are some of the "Usual" suspects. Otters do however like to haul out on rocks, logs, the bank, and on gravel shoals to devourer their prey, so look in these areas for feathers. Because of the social nature of otters they can hide some serious groceries because there may be several otters feeding on just one kill.

 

[jodybelle]

We've looked high and low and haven't found a trace of our gosling. The others won't leave their pen. They were pretty traumatized by the whole thing. It was a high speed get away for them. They hid amongst the rocks in our waterfall down to the creek where they swim. We have a Koi pond on top. Our yard slopes down to the creek and there's a big area that we mow that's part of our yard.