{"id":592909,"date":"2026-05-19T18:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/592909\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T18:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:07:08","slug":"its-devastating-kent-villagers-issue-plea-for-return-of-stolen-goose-nicknamed-gandalf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/592909\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s devastating’: Kent villagers issue plea for return of ‘stolen’ goose nicknamed Gandalf"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feathers have been ruffled in a Kent<\/a> village after a goose nicknamed Gandalf was allegedly stolen in broad daylight, leaving behind his companion ‘Ryan Gosling’.<\/p>\n

A witness reportedly saw a driver bundle the goose into the back of a black estate car, prompting fury from the local community.<\/p>\n

For two years the birds, Ryan and Gandalf, have been living on Basted Millpond, near Borough Green.<\/p>\n

But last week a passer by claimed to have seen a motorist snatch the bird and drive away. <\/p>\n

The birds have lived happily in the area for two years. Credit: ITV Meridian<\/p>\n

A resident from a nearby village, Jane Sewell-Watts, said she was shocked anyone would do this to a bird.<\/p>\n

She said: “It’s a community area, people enjoy local wildlife. You know the geese have been there regularly. <\/p>\n

“They have provided a lot of happiness to people with their mental health and now this. It’s devastating.”<\/p>\n

Ms Sewell-Watts hopes the bird is unharmed and has begged the thieves to return it.<\/p>\n

Benjamin McConnachie, landlord of The Plough at Basted, is offering a \u00a3400 reward for information leading to the conviction of the “low-lifes” alleged to have stolen the bird.<\/p>\n

He said: “People are so upset, kids, mothers, grandparents. <\/p>\n

“The way we look at it, it was their pond, they were residents, it was their pond, that was their home.”<\/p>\n

“We’ve actually now set up a group, a trust fund to protect the geese.”<\/p>\n

It’s thought that Gandalf may originally have been released by someone who could no longer look after him, and a couple from nearby bought him Ryan as a companion.<\/p>\n

Geese are sociable animals and the concerned residents have since travelled some distance to purchase a new companion for the remaining bird – already nicknamed – ‘Gengoose Khan’.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Kent Police said: “Inquiries are under way to establish the circumstances in line with offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.”<\/p>\n

Reporting History sees journalists join News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby to revisit their remarkable on-the-day reports of the defining events of the modern age. Listen to the episodes below…<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feathers have been ruffled in a Kent village after a goose nicknamed Gandalf was allegedly stolen in broad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-592909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}