In association with
RTV North
NOS News•
The two geese that were rescued on Saturday from a house where members of the Groningen student association Vindicat live were there for a student prank. That says the animal ambulance, which reports against the students who kept the geese.
The case came to light after the Groningen news site Sikkom received a photo of a student room with a large swastika (in mirror image) on the wall and a goose in front of the window. When employees of the animal ambulance saw the photo, they immediately went to the house and took the geese with them.
The Vindicat members who lived in the house were subsequently suspended by the student association.
Banger and normal
Marian Ubels was one of the employees of the animal ambulance who took care of the geese on Saturday. In return for RTV North she says she has been in contact with one of the students involved in the action. “It was actually a student prank: that the whole freshman room would be covered in shit,” she says.
She continues: “So I also asked him, ‘Have you realized for a moment what it means to those critters, that they come out of a meadow and then just wander around aimlessly in a room?’ He said he was very sorry about it, but that he hadn’t really thought about what this means for the geese.”
According to Ubels, the geese are still not doing well. “They are with us temporarily,” she says, “to recover a bit and get the right nutrition. I can’t fill in what happened, but they are more scared than usual. They need time, they just have to to strengthen.”
Completely misjudged
The board of the Groningen student corps has announced that the house in question has been suspended for a year. This means that the members “in house” are not allowed to participate in association activities.
The student association itself is also investigating the incident. In addition, Vindicat is investigating whether the members will be suspended individually. “This has not happened from the association and it is also something that we completely distance ourselves from,” says a spokesperson. “It is also understandable and logical that a declaration has been made.”
According to Vindicat, the students involved have expressed their regret. In a statement they write that the geese would not stay in the room for more than a day, after which they would be returned to their owner.
“It is inexplicable in retrospect that we did not consider how stressful this must have been for the animals. We completely misjudged this.” It is not clear how many Vindicat members were involved in the incident.
