It's A Moral Conundrum

I spent last weekend doing comedy at Mak's Old City Hall in Coos Bay, OR, (every Friday and Saturday at 8, new comics every weekend!) and on a beautiful Saturday morning I awoke, refreshed by the sound of highway traffic that had filled my motel room for 8 hours, and took a little jog around the neighborhood. I found a picturesque park with a pond in it behind 10th street, and then I met a goose. He was hissing at the sky, and I thought, something in the sky has pissed this goose off, because I am not as bright as I could be in the morning. Then I realized that I had pissed the goose off. I started running from the goose, at first lightheartedly, and then sincerely and with a certain amount of panic. I told him I had no interest in his eggs, but he kept after me, hissing and snapping, for a good 15 yards. This brings me to my conundrum: as a vegan, and in the interest of self-defense only, is it still within my rights to punch out a goose?

Postscript: LCS showcase finalist Andy Haynes advised that the best route might in fact be be to put a boot in a goose's caboose- again, humanely and in self-defense only.