My family and I went down to the river. I hear this high pitched kind of repetitive cry, so I look over and there is a baby goose on the river swimming towards us, obviously too young to be on its on and separated from its mother.There is a dam and a walkbridge that separates the lower river from the upper river, so he must have fallen over the dam into the lower river. I tried a few times to get the baby goose to come to me so I could pick it up and take it to its mom (whom I found with several other baby geese on the upper side, above the dam), but it swam away when I got too close. I went so far as to try and find a mother goose call on Youtube to play for it to encourage it towards me (it did not work).
I tried to enlist the help of my family, but they all insisted there was nothing I could do. I couldn't very well swim after it (though I was prepared to, it wasn't that far from the shore but I would have needed help corralling him), I didn't have a net to catch him or bread to entice him. So, I was left walking away, hearing him still crying. My dad brought up a good point, that once the people were gone in the evening, the mother and other babies would likely walk up the hill, across the walkway, and down to the other side where he was (the lower side of the river, after the dam).
But just hearing him, crying, knowing where his mom was and knowing I
could help him but also couldn't, left me close to tears.
It makes me want to do wildlife rehabilitation as a career. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Maybe I'll look into that.