Midnight Marauder

A marauder kills 6 geese and 4 ducks. Farmer says culprit may be a bear

By Jeanne Bonner | Of The Morning Call
December 16, 2007

It started about 2 a.m. Saturday morning when the neighbor's dogs began to bark.

Normally, they only bark when the fire siren sounds, said George DeVault who lives and works on a 20-acre farm in Upper Milford Township. No fire siren had sounded.

At 4 a.m. one of the St. Bernard dogs was still barking, so DeVault got up and went outside to see what the trouble was. He soon found the bodies of six of his geese and four ducks. A waist-high electric fence designed to keep intruders out of the animals' pen was badly mangled.

To DeVault, and an official he called at the Pennsylvania Game Commission, it's likely a bear attacked and killed the animals.

''The markings on the bodies indicate an animal with a big mouth,'' said DeVault, 56, in an interview Saturday afternoon.

DeVault sells blueberries, cut flowers and eggs culled from his geese at the Emmaus Farmers Market. He estimates the intruder cost him about $500. That includes $40 a head he expected to collect from the Farmhouse restaurant in Emmaus, which had reserved four geese to serve over the holidays.

''We have one left and I don't think I have the heart to eat her after what she went through last night,'' said DeVault.

''Oh no!'' exclaimed Michael Adams, the chef of the Farmhouse, when he learned the fate of the geese he had ordered.

Then there was a pause.

''Oh no!'' he said again. ''What a shame.''

Adams had planned to include goose on a special menu at the restaurant for New Year's Eve.

According to field notes on the Game Commission's Web site, bears have been sighted recently in Northampton County. One report said archery hunters saw ''numerous bears'' near Blue Mountain. Two bears were killed along the road in the first week of November.

A game commissioner told DeVault to hold onto the carcasses until Monday, when an official will examine the animals to determine the type of predator. The game commission did not respond to calls seeking comment on Saturday.