Couple honked off over town's ban on geese

Town of Beloit  — Bob Sparks and his wife, Sylvia Davis, have big plans for their pet geese.

They aim to turn a broken hot tub into a backyard swimming pool for the family of five honkers, an upgrade from the shallow plastic ones they use now. And they're hoping to beam a live camera feed of the birds out on the internet.

But first they have to haggle over the gaggle with town officials who have said they can't keep geese on their residential-zoned property without special permission.

Sparks and Davis argue that the white geese are registered as emotional support animals as recognized by federal law, and therefore the town ordinance does not apply to them.

Sparks suffered leg and brain injuries in 2006 when he was hit by a pickup truck as he pushed a stranger's car that was out of gas. The former factory worker has memory lapses and can't work, so caring for the geese gives him something satisfying to do.

He and Davis are honked off at the town right now, and they don't intend to back down.

"It's still in limbo," Beloit Town Administrator Ian Haas told me this week. The couple has until Oct. 17 to send in a variance application, and pay a $200 filing fee, or they will be subject to fines for keeping the geese illegally. Haas says he's inclined to recommend that the couple be allowed to keep the geese.

"I don't know why they're not just doing what anyone else would have to do," Haas said. "It's something you see in local government way more than it needs to happen. If people would follow the procedure instead of trying to find ways around it, they are much more successful in a much shorter period of time."

Or the town could say no and refuse to refund any of the $200, Davis said. "I'm pretty sunk in the water then."

Let me properly introduce the domestic geese. Lucy came first, as in Lucy Goosey, from a friend last year. Then the couple realized geese don't do well alone, so they got a second goose, not knowing it was a gander. He became Ricky and the "I Love Lucy" theme was rolling. Nature took its course and three eggs hatched to become Fred, Ethel and Mrs. Trumble, whom you might remember as the Ricardos' neighbor and baby sitter. (She spelled it Trumbull.)

The five made quite a racket when I pulled up to the fenced yard on Monday, and the protective mother goose tried nipping me twice.

"They're as good as watchdogs," Sparks, 57, said as he reached out to shake my hand.

For some 20 years now, he and Davis have owned their home, silo and other buildings on 1.8 acres that were carved from a large farm. They're bordered on two sides by a cornfield and forest. So they're more rural than urban. They claim their neighbors have boarded llamas, skunks, birds of prey, an emu and even a cougar over the years.

"I love these damn geese, I really do," Sparks said. "I don't understand what the big deal is."

Davis she was told by a Town Board member that she didn't help her case by turning to the news media, consulting a lawyer and starting a petition on change.org. As of Tuesday, more than 1,500 people from near and far have signed in favor of saving the geese.

Three doctors have signed letters saying Sparks and also Davis would benefit from the affection and companionship of the geese. Davis has amyloidosis, a rare disease affecting her throat and lungs.

"I write about the geese. They're my therapy. They make me laugh," she said.

Pretty much any critter can be deemed an emotional support animal. "They actually have a hippo registered. They have to let it on a plane," Davis claimed.

Sparks came home in a wheelchair after his accident. But his legs had been saved from amputation. A couple years later, he got a miniature horse, Walnut, and he learned to walk again during the time he cared for the horse.

But guess who made him get rid of the horse because it wasn't permitted on his property? The Town of Beloit. Davis now says she wished they had fought that order and had the horse proclaimed a service or emotional support animal. Sparks went into decline in the years that followed.

The couple is determined not to let that happen again and to keep the geese. Sparks lets them out of their protective enclosure every morning, makes sure they have fresh water to drink, adds some poultry snacks to their regular diet of grass and weeds, and tucks them in at night.

"My husband will never be the old Bob, but he can still be Bob with a purpose!" Davis wrote with heavy use of exclamation marks on the change.org page. "They are a lovely little family, and it will break all of our hearts to get rid of them!"

Later that evening, as I was scraping goose poop off the bottom of my shoes, I was thinking that what's good for the geese —  and for their owners —  is to stay put where they are.

Call Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or email at jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl