A man has been arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty after a popular goose named in honour of Ian McKellen‘s Lord of the Rings character has been stolen from a Kent village pond.

Gandalf had lived with his companion, named Ryan after the actor Gosling, in Basted Millpond near Borough Green for two years.

But last Tuesday the goose was bundled into the boot of a car at around 7pm, according to a witness.

Kent Police said a man in his 20s from the area had been arrested and remains in custody as officers continue to investigate. 

A driver who had stopped in a lay-by in Basted Lane told villager Nigel Sheepwash he had seen a black estate car pull up by the pond before a man took Gandalf, an Embden goose.

He then reportedly drove off in the direction of Plough Hill.

Mr Sheepwash left to collect his wife from the train station at 6.50pm and saw both geese in their regular place but when he returned at about 7.20pm, one had gone.

He began searching, then contacted the neighbours who looked after the geese, to see if they had removed one. They then called the police.

Mr Sheepwash 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.

‘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.’

Benjamin Mcconnachie, landlord of The Plough at Basted pub, said the thief was ‘the scum of the earth’ and the community had been devastated by Gandalf’s loss.

‘Everyone loves those geese,’ the publican said.

‘People come from Borough Green, Platt, Crouch and other villages to visit them, and bring their children.

‘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.’

Mr Mcconnachie, who has run The Plough for 13 years, said he would offer a £400 reward for information leading to the conviction of the ‘low-life’.

He added that a car had raced past the pub 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.

Julie Dervish, a resident in a nearby village, 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 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 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 on his own – Embden geese are too heavy to fly.

Geese are sociable animals and need company but Gandalf seemed to decline after his friends flew off, with a couple living near the pond saying he was ‘moping about and looking miserable’.

They travelled to Norwich and bought Ryan as a companion for the lone goose.

The ganders – male geese – lived happily together, with a resident saying 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 the geese grain every evening, put up warning signs urging drivers to slow down.

One half of the couple, who asked not to be named, 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 be saddened at his newfound loneliness as Gandalf had been previously.

So they bought another goose – named Gengoose Khan – in Bournemouth on Thursday, which has now been released at Basted Mill.

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.’