VIRGINIA BEACH—
NewsChannel 3 is taking action to save stranded animals left in a drained Virginia Beach pond.Construction crews emptied the water without any plan for the animals living there until the Virginia Beach SPCA and NewsChannel 3 got involved.
Approximately six domestic geese are now living in the parking lot of the Virginia Beach public defender's building, drinking water from a bucket and eating food left there by the staff. Until just a few days ago, the geese lived at the pond, which was located next door. They'd been there for at least 10 years. Crews drained the pond to dig it deeper in order to control flooding.
Wildlife rescuer, Barbara Gipson says they can't just fly to another pond.
"They don't just get up and fly. These type of geese are not big fliers. They're pretty heavy and they tend to walk most everywhere they go," she says.
Essentially, they're pets dumped here long ago. The construction has left not only the geese homeless, but also these turtles that crawled away from the machines and huddled near the post office.
Gipson, who works for the Beach SPCA, says this work went forward without any regard for the wildlife living here. She's convinced most of the fish and frogs died in the pump. The ones that escaped the pump perished when the water went away.
"When you're watching them gasp for air and bounce around, it's tough," Gipson says.
Today, whether from Gipson's persistence or the presence of NewsChannel 3 cameras, workers went to work saving the turtles. The backhoe driver even wriggled the steel bucket over one and plucked it from the soupy mud.
But the geese might not be welcomed back. A spokeswoman for the post office says the deeper pond will be surrounded by a high chain-link fence, leaving the geese no access.
Wildlife advocates asked that a hole be left in the fence for the birds, but the spokeswoman said project managers couldn't be reached today to see if that was possible.
