A prestigious tennis club in Surrey has pulled all of its social media accounts after a backlash triggered by the slaughter of a gaggle of resident geese.
Members of St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club in Weybridge, as well as swathes of the public, have let rip since management called in a marksman to stop the birds making a mess of its courts.
Neighbours of the £2,664–a–year club say gunshots woke them up in the early hours of July 16, and they later discovered that eight birds, including goslings, had been killed.
Locals later claimed they also found an adult goose and gosling in a distressed state, having apparently escaped the cull.
The club had previously posted cute photos of the birds on its social media channels. In April last year it shared a picture of two adult Canada geese with two goslings, captioned: ‘We have baby goslings on our Lakeside Terrace!’ In 2024 it shared a post of a family of the birds in the rain, captioned: ‘At least the Canadian geese family enjoyed the courts today.’
But last night the club’s social media pages were missing, along with staff photos on its website, after members of the public vented their fury online.
One commentator said: ‘The tennis club claim they were pests and murdered them by the club’s lake. Such barbaric action in a situation where local wildlife organisations would have taken them in.’
St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club in Weybridge, Surrey, faces intense public and member backlash after hiring a marksman to shoot a resident family of eight Canada geese, including goslings
Neighbours reported being awakened by gunshots in the early hours of July 16. Distressed surviving birds that escaped the cull were reportedly spotted in the area afterward
Another wrote: ‘You would have thought the club could have afforded to get someone to do a regular clean up.’
Club members say they were not consulted about the cull, with one telling The Times: ‘Members have always liked the geese.
It is sometimes a bit annoying because they amble on to the courts and leave their poo, but that doesn’t mean they had to be shot.’
The club’s chief executive Miles Hill said the decision to shoot the birds was taken ‘on the grounds of public health and safety’.
