An animal rescuer puts himself in danger to save a Brant goose
When he got the call to attend to a duck tangled in fishing line on April 30, Animal Care and Control rescuer Brendon Ocasio didn’t expect anything unusual, but upon arriving to the scene in Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn, between Bensonhurst and Coney Island, Brendon knew this rescue would be anything but usual. Instead of finding a tangled up duck, he found a Brant, a small ocean goose, so badly tangled in fishing line that it was tethered to an algae-covered rock about 10 feet out into the bay. To make the situation even more dire, a 20-ft. embankment separated Brendon from the Brant.
“The tide was coming in and he was getting smacked up (against the rocks). I was ready to get in the water,” Brendon says. Realizing that the Brant was in distress, Brendon acted quickly. He didn’t have a ladder or repelling equipment, so Brendon did the next best thing: He tied the lead ropes he uses in dog rescues to the embankment’s railing and lowered himself, armed with a carrier, into the bay. As he carefully climbed over the slick rocks, Brendon saw that the Brant’s leg, body and wing were wrapped in fishing line. “I’m for people fishing, but throw away your stuff,” Brendon says.
Brendon approached the Brant, cradled it in his arms, and cut away enough of the fishing line to free the Brant and place it in the carrier. The Brant remained calm as Brendon freed it from the rock. “It was really tired; it had obviously been fighting for awhile,” Brendon says. “But I knew no matter what, we were going to get him.”
Brendon climbed back up the embankment where a crowd had gathered to watch the rescue – including the woman who called it in and took the photos – with the Brant secured in the carrier, and headed to The Wild Bird Fund, currently located at Animal General on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There, rehabbers removed the rest of the fishing line from the exhausted Brant – the line was wrapped twice around its left wing and wound tightly around its left leg – and applied a pressure bandage to the wound from where the line cut into the goose’s leg.
From a distance, the Brant resembles a diminutive Canada goose but with a blacker head, neck and chest, and a white, broken collar. Brants are common to the New York area, but the chances of seeing them in the city are slim. These are coastal geese that winter along the shore and then fly off to the high Arctic tundra in the spring for mating season.
The Brant stayed with The Wild Bird Fund until May 6 when Robin, who works for Animal General, took it back to the boat landing at Gravesend Bay for release. Robin said that the Brant, who arrived at The Wild Bird Fund exhausted and stressed, was very impressive as it flew off to join other Brants.
The Wild Bird Fund is grateful for Brandon and other animal rescuers for their passion and dedication to helping New York’s wildlife. When asked what he was thinking that day when he climbed over the embankment to rescue the Brant, Brandon says, “I was thinking of the steps I needed to take…This isn’t a job for me; it’s a passion.”
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