Tourists Claim They Were “Held Hostage” by Geese

A vacationing couple is claiming that their dream vacation turned into a nightmare Monday evening after witnessing a vicious attack and being held hostage in a public restroom. This type of story has become all-too-common on the island lately, but this one comes with a twist. According to the tourists, the perpetrator wasn’t a masked man, or drug-crazed lunatic looking for their next fix, it was a goose. To be precise, a flock of geese.

28-year-old Bret Casey and his 27-year-old wife Spring claim that they were heading back to their hotel after a long walk down the beach when the incident occurred. The couple says they had spent the day exploring the beach and enjoying Lahaina’s nightlife before the evening took a bizarre and terrifying turn.

According to their report, the Casey’s were on the way home in the dark and become lost. Seeing a light in the distance, they walked up to get their bearings and came upon a chaotic scene. The couple claims that they witnessed a group of fellow tourists around a beach fire being attacked by a flock of geese.

Bret’s statement reads in part:

“They were all running around and screaming but I didn’t think it was that serious until the birds knocked a guy down and I saw blood. I tried to help him up but they had hold of him and were dragging him towards the water. Then they started attacking me. I couldn’t believe how strong they were. They almost knocked me down a couple of times and I got really scared for Spring. I grabbed her arm and we ran for the public restrooms we had passed just a few minutes before. We kept hearing the shouts and screams inside so I decided to go back and see if I could help.”

While the couple’s story seems hard to believe, their official statements are as consistent as they are extraordinary. The narrative continues with Mrs. Casey reporting.

“They were all over one of them when Bret went back outside. He tried to help but there was too many of them and he ran back into the building….You could hear the geese walking on the roof and fighting…I’m not sure how long we waited but we didn’t see any of them after a while so Bret went to check to see if it was clear, but they had just been waiting for us. They were biting and hitting him with their wings so he ran back before they knocked him down too…This went on all night. We tried escaping a couple times but they wouldn’t leave. Then, a few hours after the sun came up we saw someone parasailing and they took off…There must have been 20-30 of them that flew after the boat. We ran back down the beach until we found help and called the police.”

The couple was taken to a local hospital where Bret was treated for multiple cuts and contusions. Officials say they found no evidence of the kind of attack reported, and point out that a group of missing tourists would have surely been reported by now. However, they do confirm that the area did contain numerous feathers and nene tracks. The police say they can’t comment on specific open cases, but are investigating the claims and waiting for the results of a drug screen. No charges have been filed at this point. An anonymous source familiar with the case says, “The story is obviously hard to believe. Something might have attacked the guy, but at this point, we’re confident that something is going to turn out to be gravity and overindulgence. We’ve had a big increase in aggressive animal complaints since Veilcorp expanded their 127 production, but I haven’t heard anything about killer geese before. We’ll know more once the Department of Land and Natural Resources completes their report and the spot of blood we found at the scene is processed.”

While reports of animal attacks, in general, have gone up in the past year, there have only been a handful of reports involving the nene. Greg Iona, Senior Investigator for the Department of Land and Natural Resources, says that a flock of homicidal geese is absurd. Iona points out that the native nene is too small and lacks the physical characteristics to be a serious danger. Instead, he agrees with the police and suggests that the couple most likely had a few too many drinks and wandered into a nesting area. “I’m sure once the reports are all in we’ll find that what we have here is a drunk couple who stumbled into an area with some protective mother birds. Geese have long been known to have one of nature’s worst tempers. They’re one of the few animals that I’ve studied that I believe can feel and express hate. The world would be a much different place if geese were just a bit bigger, or had claws or teeth. Luckily for us, and the 4 million people who visit Maui each year, they don’t.”