And I must go where the wild goose goes.
--Wade Hemsworth
Canada geese are everywhere. Especially in Seattle, and especially around the University of Washington. The large lawns of the campus invite continual grazing, and the geese have learned to ignore the careless moving legs of students hurrying by.
Geese mate for life, and they graze in large flocks. I've never seen a solitary Canada goose. Until today.
I walked toward the campus, just across Walla Walla Road from the university's football stadium. And there, in front of me, was a Canada goose. A single goose. He was pacing back and forth, as though he had lost something. To my anthropomorphic eyes, he himself looked lost.
He stood on the edge of the sidewalk as I approached. He ignored me. He was clearly habituated to human company. But he seemed worried. He looked like a goose who had lost his family. His flock. Or like a child wandering about a parking lot, on the verge of tears, seeking his parents. As I say, I tend to anthropomorphize.
As I walked over the Montlake Boulevard footbridge, onto the campus proper, I saw the flock right in front of me. Less than a city block from my solitary and worried friend. They were doing what Canada geese do at this time of year. Grazing, like a herd of cattle. I looked back. The lost goose was still where I left him. He appeared about to cross Walla Walla, heading toward the stadium. If he were to fly twenty feet or so into the air, he could look down and easily see his friends and relatives chowing down.
He didn't fly. But I continued my walk. I proceeded to University Village, had coffee and a snack, and eventually -- some two hours later -- returned the way I'd come.
The goose was exactly where I had left him. But no longer pacing. He had lowered himself to the ground, and was hiding his head under his wing. His eyes peeped out at me. He looked tired. He looked lonely. He looked miserable. I approached him. His response was that of a homeless beggar who has given up hope that anyone will help him -- he didn't move, he merely stared.
I took his photo. Taking a photo felt like something a dense American tourist might do in Calcutta, catching sight of a starving but photogenic child.
Unlike a beggar, the goose couldn't use money. Nor could I show him the location of his family. I had the urge to pick him up and carry him across the footbridge, but I wasn't totally insane. The temperature was in the mid-40s. He wasn't going to freeze. But what was he going to do? I looked back, just before walking out of sight. He hadn't moved.
What does a Canada goose -- a gregarious animal -- do when separated from his flock? The flock eats together, they fly together, they migrate together. One goose must be the Chief Goose, and the rest followers. What does a follower do when he has no leader?
I wondered if I dared return to the scene tomorrow. Would I see the pitiful corpse of a dead goose lying in the grass? I forwarded my photo to my Facebook page (of course I did!), with a despairing comment about the "routine cruelty of Mother Nature."
When I got home, a quick Google search relieved my anxiety to some extent. One writer, who clearly knew her geese, wrote:
Geese are monogamous, which means they have only one mate and stay loyal to that mate. If the mate dies, the other is left alone and will eventually find a new mate, but it often takes a while. Also, perhaps like some humans, some geese may tend to be more introverted. I’ve seen perfectly healthy geese that choose to be alone. It doesn’t always mean something is wrong with them. Usually geese are found in groups, but it’s not super uncommon to see a lone goose.
Thank God, I thought. This goose may simply be a loner, not unlike myself. Rather than eat with the crowd, he was merely getting his bearings before spending a quiet evening at the library.
I'm not convinced. I can't rule out that all was well, and that he was simply relaxing before going about his business. But his aimless pacing, his dull-eyed glaze, seemed to reveal a goose who was not just wandering, upstairs, downstairs and in his lady's chamber, but in circles of growing despair.
The whole incident raised the question of "theodicy" in my mind, the issue that brought Charles Darwin to a religious crisis: How can a loving God -- even if "natural selection" is a necessary tool to enable evolution -- permit natural selection to operate in a way that creates so much seemingly unnecessary suffering?
This poor Canada goose -- who by now may well be sitting back, having a smoke with his buddies, and laughing at how he managed to get himself lost for a couple of hours -- is not the most compelling example of the cruelty of Mother Nature that so bothered Darwin.
But he did bring the disturbing issue to mind.
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