A two-day-old gosling suffered a broken leg after a group of young children attacked it at Barnet Marine Park in Burnaby on Monday.
Local resident Olga K., who declined to give her last name, said she was at the park with her two young children watching the geese near the water at about 6 p.m. when three children started attacking the birds.
"They were trying to throw sand on them, hit them with a stick, catch them," she said.
The children were unsupervised at the time of the incident, she said.
"I did not expect that," Olga said. "I was in shock . you can expect this from children, especially at a younger age, but I was more in shock that nobody was trying to stop them."
Later, she found the crippled chick in a parking lot after it had been separated from its family.
She took it home to care for it overnight before taking it to the Wildlife Rescue Association of B.C. at Burnaby Lake on Tuesday morning.
The gosling was "highly stressed and thrashing in pain" when staff first examined it, according to the rescue association.
The bird is now in stable condition with its leg in a splint, thought it may still have to be euthanized, said Yolanda Brooks, communications coordinator for the WRA.
"It had a small cut on the leg as well, but otherwise its body condition is good, so if we can get the leg to heal, it stands a good chance of surviving," she said. "But it is tricky because it is growing so quickly."
The rescue centre has a number of orphaned goslings and the injured bird will be released with the others, if it survives.
The majority of the animals at the rescue centre are injured by accident, and it is uncommon to see animals brought in after deliberate acts of cruelty, Brooks noted.
For more information or to contact the association, go to www.wildliferescue.ca.
