American eagle vs Canadian goose: How a Goan photographer's US retreat was edited out

TOI correspondent from Washington: The Trump White House thought it had found the perfect image to troll Canada: an American bald eagle, talons locked around the neck of a Canadian goose, looking every inch like Uncle Sam had finally put the northern neighbor in a fatal headlock.There was just one problem. The goose eventually won the battle.The photograph, posted by the White House on social media amid the latest US-Canada trade spat, was meant to convey the unmistakable message that America was the eagle and Canada’s goose was cooked. Instead, the original footage, shot by a Goan immigrant, revealed an inconvenient director’s cut: after 20 minutes of aerial combat on ice, the Canadian goose fought back and the bald eagle eventually gave up and flew away.The spectacular encounter was shot on February 23, 2025, in Burlington, Ontario, by Mervyn Sequeira, who became an avid wildlife photographer after moving to Canada. Sequeira said he watched the bald eagle make repeated attacks on the goose. "At the end of 20 minutes, the bald eagle just gave up and took off," he told Global News, describing the encounter as "ballet on ice" -- although, he noted, it was hardly the nicest ballet because it was a life and death fight.Sequeira though resisted the temptation to turn his love of wildlife into foreign policy, saying he preferred to view it from “the naturalist point of view” rather than put a political spin on it. But the White House swooped in on the remarkable wildlife encounter, turning it into a diplomatic meme -- before it backfired.This has become something of a recurring problem for the MAGA flock: Its trolling does not always survive first contact with the internet. While the administration has embraced social media as a diplomatic weapon by using memes, photographs, maps and taunts to project primacy, its effort often has the polish of a high-school journal produced in the dorm after a night of wild partying.This week, for instance, the White House posted a map intended to promote Trump's proposal to call Lake Ontario “Lake America.” Unfortunately, Washington, DC, was misplaced, and several states were shuffled around like Monopoly pieces. The State Department suffered an even more spectacular cartographic failure a few weeks ago when a map of Africa at a major international conference mislabeled every country.There have been spelling and typographical gaffes, many from the President himself, whose claim of being a “stable genius” does not preclude clumsy errors like misspelling words like counsel and strait. In contrast to his witless trolling, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded with deadpan humor when a teleprompter malfunctioned at a recent news conference, joking that he did not regard it as a conspiracy -- a dig at Trump's earlier reaction to technical problems at the UN.Online jokesters have already generated goose bumps and hi-fives over the latest mishap, dubbing the photograph the “TACO eagle” — a reference to the long-running acronym “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Apparently, the bald eagle has just discovered Canadian diplomacy: talk tough, flap harder, fly home -- after cooking America’s gander.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.