I suppose saying “fearless goose” in the headline is a little redundant, eh? Pretty much every goose that I’ve ever interacted with is quite literally the devil with feathers.
Geese are very famously territorial. Anyone who has been near the sizable bird at one point in their life has probably learned that lesson the hard way. They don’t like to share space with other animals, humans, and in some cases, even other geese. That character trait is amplified when baby geese, called goslings, are involved.
Geese secure the perimeter, so to speak, by being aggressive, loud, and in most cases, downright disrespectful. I’d also like to point out that their honk is not worse than their bite (or wing flap). They are all around ruthless creatures that can really pack a punch, and that’s on full display in this video out of Estes Park, Colorado.
This elk was just walking around, grazing in the area known as base camp for Rocky Mountain National Park when it stumbled upon some baby geese. Elk are typically herbivores, but they are also known to be opportunistic feeders. If the members of the deer family feel like they are in need of calcium, they will gladly snack on baby birds. I’ve seen one chew on a rabbit before too…
The mama goose in this video from Good Bull Outdoors wasn’t going to let that happen on her watch. She decided that the larger animal had overstayed its welcome. Granted, elk probably have more right to Estes Park than geese, but an elk should know better than to get between a mother and her babies.
Estes Park is considered to be the “Elk Capital of the World.” It’s estimated that over 280,000 elk live in Colorado, which is enough to give the state the honor of housing the largest concentrated population of elk in the world. Believe it or not, that many elk bring in tourists from all over the planet, particularly to the Estes Park area.
Let me tell you… no one is going to a specific part of the country to see a gaggle of geese. They seem to always be everywhere you don’t want them to be (ask anyone who lives on the lake… geese are the bane of their existence). And the elk in this video sure wishes that the honking, aggressive goose was somewhere far away from it, and that it hadn’t decided to try and make a meal out of a gosling.
The mother goose came flying in to give the elk everything it could handle. It honked, wing-flapped, and launched an aerial attack on the larger animal in order to protect her little ones. From the looks of the clip, it appears that the goose took action right in time, and no little geese were harmed. But in other videos (even some that Good Bull Guided have shared), elk have been caught on camera eating goslings.
Nature is a brutal place, and in some cases – like this one, I suppose – it helps that geese are such fierce creatures.
