Villagers have been left heartbroken by the theft of a popular goose from a pond.
Gandalf lived with his companion Ryan, named after Ryan Gosling, in Basted Millpond near Borough Green for two years.
But last Tuesday, a passer-by claimed he had seen someone bundle the bird into the boot of a car at about 7pm.
Now, Benjamin Mcconnachie, of The Plough at Basted, is offering a £400 reward for information leading to the conviction of the “low-life”.
The publican, who has run the pub for 13 years, said his whole community had been devastated by the theft.
He said: “Everyone loves those geese.
“People come from Borough Green, Platt, Crouch and other villages to visit them, and bring their children.
Ryan and Gandalf
“Nothing like this has ever happened before. It’s always been such a nice community.
“This has left everybody very sad and upset.
“Whoever did this is the scum of the earth, and we need to catch them.”
A driver, who had stopped in a lay-by in Basted Lane, witnessed the incident and told villager Nigel Sheepwash that he had seen a black estate car pull up by the pond and take Embden goose Gandalf.
He then reportedly drove off in the direction of Plough Hill.
Mr Sheepwash had left to collect his wife from the train station at 6.50pm and spotted both geese in their regular place, but when he returned at about 7.20pm, one had gone, and he raised the alarm.
He began searching, then contacted the neighbours who looked after the geese, to see if they had removed one. They then called the police.
He said: “The van driver came down and told me what he had seen. Stupidly, I didn’t take his contact details. I’m kicking myself now.
Benjamin Mcconnachie has put up a reward
“All he said was that he had seen something fly out of the passenger window, and then saw the passenger get out. He didn’t even say if that was a man or a woman.”
Mr Mcconnachie said that a car had raced past The Plough at speed that evening.
“He was doing 70 or 80mph, which is what brought my attention to it,” he said.
He checked his pub’s CCTV and found an image of a dark-coloured estate car as it sped past at 7.01pm.
The incident has unleashed a torrent of both sadness and anger on social media, where villagers have turned into sleuths to track down the villains.
Many have reposted the CCTV image of the car on the Facebook pages of neighbouring villages in the hope that someone will be able to identify the thieves.
A car passing the Plough pub around the time of the incident
One of them, Julie Dervish, said: “We’re all very upset. I’m in my 50s now and live in Platt, but when my children were young, we used to visit Basted Mill all the time to see the wildlife.
“It’s is a bit off the beaten track. It’s not the sort of place that you would casually pass, so the thieves must have visited and seen the geese before and planned the theft.”
Gandalf appeared mysteriously on the pond two years ago and is thought to have been released by someone who could no longer look after him.
He lived initially with a family of wild greylag geese on the pond, but when they flew off, he was left all alone.
Embden geese are too heavy to fly.
Ryan on his ownsome
Geese are sociable animals and need company. A couple who live near the pond noticed Gandalf was going into a decline – saying he was “moping about and looking miserable”.
So they travelled to Norwich and purchased Ryan, bringing him back as a companion.
The male geese, called ganders, lived happily together.
One of the couple, who asked not to be named, said: “They were very tranquil and not particularly noisy.
“Sometimes on warm days they would sit on the tarmac of the road, and motorists would have to edge round them, but there’s not really any through traffic here, and we all learnt to take care and do that.”
The couple, who also fed them geese grain every evening, put up warning signs, as did the parish council, urging drivers to slow down.
The Plough at Basted
He added: “If a driver had hit a goose and killed it, stopped, and done the right thing, we would have been sad, but not angry.
“But any deliberate act of violence against wildlife, as this seems to have been, is just deplorable.
“We can’t comprehend the mentality of the lowlife that would do such a thing.”
The couple were fearful that, left alone, Ryan would plunge into a depressive decline as Gandalf had done previously.
So on Thursday, they travelled to Bournemouth and purchased another goose, which has now been released at Basted Mill as a companion.
His name is Gengoose Khan.
Ryan (right) now has a new companion, Khan
Kent Police said: “It is alleged the bird was placed in the boot of a dark coloured estate car, which subsequently left the scene.
“Inquiries are underway to establish the circumstances in line with offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
“Anyone with information is urged to call the West Kent appeals line on 01622 604100, quoting reference 13-1600.”
Basted Mill was a paper mill, dating from 1750. It was demolished in 1999, and the site was redeveloped with 29 houses by Crest housebuilders.