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On 14 December 2011, the Daily Mail ran the story of the “Olympic Parkbeast”, after Mike Wells came forward to report that he’d seen a 16lb (7.3kg)Canada goose dragged beneath the surface of the River Lea by an unseen predator(FT285:8; see also 204:5 for a similar occurrence in 2005).He told the news-paper: “We were just passing the time of day looking at aCanada goose 30 yards away, but then it just suddenly disappeared. It went downvertically. There wasn’t any hesitation, it went straight down. It didn’t comeback up. My friend and I looked at each other slack-jawed.”1

The search was on for the ‘killer beast’, thenewspaper adding that “the number of swans on the river and waterways near thenewly built £9bn Olympic Park is also dropping”, with many people fearing thata large pike, “pet alligator or snake” was on the loose.

The River Lea is an ancient waterway, first recordedin the 9th century.