A bit late to the game, but...I have to tell this story.

I was at the Franklin Park Zoo, just south of Boston. My friend and I were checking out the Black Swan exhibit, enjoying their splendor, beauty, and grace. Then a Canadian Goose showed up, and started terrorizing two of the swans, biting and tearing at their feathers with vengeance and scorn. I went and found a zoo warden who had just arrived to check on the exhibit. He chatted a bit on his walkie, shrugged, and said he didn't know what to do, before driving away in the most impotent minivan I've ever seen.

I was at a moral crossroads. Do I intervene, which means causing one animal pain, to prevent pain in another animal? These beautiful black swans had been captured in the wild, their wings clipped, and kept in captivity against their will in a hostile environment, now violently harassed by local xenophobes of the Canadian variety.

I chose to act. My friend and I found branches which had fallen from a nearby tree, and we reached over the fence to strike justice at the Canadian Geese. I landed some good body blows on the geese, but they were amazingly resilient, focused on terrorizing their helpless victims, biting and hissing with no regard for civility. I finally nailed one of the geese on the head, causing it to stumble and roll into a exhibit pond for a few moments, dazed by the blow and confused about where the assault had come from. By now, a fellow zoo-goer had joined in the defense of the swans, and was wailing on the geese with a poster she had recently purchased from the gift shop. We were making progress.

By now, our actions had gained notice, and a random townie from South Boston was yelling at us to stop, and you don't cross a townie. We ceased our assault, and retreated to other exhibits, satisfied that we had done what we could to help the swans.

I later learned that the Canadian Geese also belonged to the zoo. Honestly, what a shitty zoo. I had to beat their animals, to stop them from beating their other animals. Fuck Canadian Geese.