A caller told officials in Clark County, Ohio, that he saw Haitians stealing geese. They found no evidence

An August call to a non-emergency number in Ohio fuels a false narrative spread by former President Donald Trump that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are harming animals.

In an audio recording published by the conservative newspaper The Federalist, a person is heard speaking at the Clark County Communications Center, which covers Springfield. “I saw a group of Haitians, there were about four of them, they all had geese in their hands,” he said.

The caller said he could not identify the full license plate number of the car the group was traveling in. He reported that the incident occurred near the intersection of Water and Warder streets and involved two men and two women. When asked by the operator how many geese the people had, he responded, “They each had one.”

Several Instagram users shared a screenshot of the Federalist article’s headline — “EXCLUSIVE: Police audio and report confirm Haitian goose hunt in Ohio: ‘They all had geese in their hands.'” — as well as the audio track.

“They fact-checked Donald Trump during the debate,” read one comment from Trump supporter and commentator David J. Harris Jr. “I wish the media would just do their job.”

The posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat fake news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Learn more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.)

The existence of the audio recording and report does not “confirm” that the goose hunt is occurring. Clark County officials have not disputed that this non-emergency call occurred. But they have said they have found no evidence — such as videos, photos or dead geese — to support the claim.

On September 10, Trump said during a debate with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, that Springfield, Ohio residents’ dogs and cats were being eaten. We noted that Pants on Fire; Springfield officials said they had no credible information about this.

An hour before the debate, a reporter for The Federalist shared his September 10 story on X, which included an audio recording of the call and a link to a written report from the call center that showed the operator referred the caller to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The Trump campaign also amplified the story in a September 10 press release summarizing The Federalist story.

PolitiFact reached out to The Federalist reporter by email but did not receive a response. The news organization’s co-founder posted a screenshot of PolitiFact’s email request for information about X but did not provide a response.

Springfield, which had a population of 58,000 in 2020, has received between 12,000 and 15,000 Haitian migrants in recent years, many fleeing years of political unrest, according to city officials. Local officials say the rapid population growth has strained schools, housing and health care, while also leading to cultural divisions and misinformation.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there about refugees and immigration, and I don’t know the status of every single person who lives in this community,” Melanie Wilt, chairwoman of the Clark County Commission, said at a Sept. 10 news conference when she was asked about wildlife abductions. “But overall, they’re seeking asylum and refuge from a really difficult situation in Haiti.”

Ohio Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Karina Cheung told PolitiFact in a September 14 email that the agency had found “no evidence to support” the claim that Haitians were removing wildlife from local parks.

Cheung said a wildlife officer received and followed up on two calls from people reporting alleged cases of Haitians taking waterfowl from Snyder Park in Springfield, including the Aug. 26 report involving geese.

The other incident was reported on March 27, with a caller claiming to have seen “three people grab a live duck and a goose, put them in a trash bag and walk away.”

“After monitoring, no evidence was found that wild animals were illegally removed from the park in either case,” Cheung said.

Cheung shared an incident report that showed the agency followed up on the report the next day, Aug. 27. Cheung said the agency found no evidence to support that claim.

PolitiFact contacted the Clark County Communications Center and the sheriff’s office on September 14 to request the audio and report, but did not immediately receive a response.

Wilt also said authorities have determined that reports of wildlife being kidnapped or killed in local parks are unfounded.

“That is absolutely false,” she said at the Sept. 10 news conference. “My fellow county commissioner, Sasha Rittenhouse, is down there, she went with the local game warden last week and asked that question and we know for a fact that it is an urban legend.”

Rittenhouse was also quoted in a 9/11 Springfield News-Sun article telling commissioners she had found nothing to support that claim: “No video has surfaced, no photos have surfaced, no dead geese have surfaced; there is no evidence that this is happening.”

PolitiFact had previously fact-checked social media posts that falsely claimed Haitian immigrants in Springfield ate pets and wildlife, and that included a photo of a man carrying a dead bird. But we traced the image back to a Reddit post from August that said it was taken in Columbus, Ohio, about 48 miles east of Springfield.

Given the popularity of this claim, we wondered if geese played a role in Haitian cuisine or culture. We reached out to Nadège Fleurimond, a Haitian-born chef and author of several books, including “Haiti Uncovered: A Regional Adventure Into the Art of Haitian Cuisine,” in New York. Fleurimond’s response: “No. Geese are not part of our cuisine. I have never heard of geese in Haiti. I have seen geese roaming a resort property in Haiti on rare occasions, but I have never seen them hunted or cooked.”

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