New York City Massacres Canada Geese... Who will Weep?

In what Quakers would surely call wrong relationship with the earth and fellow species, the city of New York, with the active involvement and assistance of the federal government including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, plans to round up and kill every Canada goose living within seven miles of New York City's JFK and LaGuardia airports. See recent New York Times article about the disappearance of beloved geese from Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

Every morning and evening this summer, geese flew low over the Hudson river outside my windows to and from their favorite watery locations in the neighborhood. I haven't heard their quiet honkings and murmurings in weeks now, nor seen their little family groups, with goslings, along the riverbank below.

The capture of the geese in Prospect Park was timed to their molting, when they cannot fly.

The assault on tens of thousands of geese in the region began after a few Canadas were sucked into the engines of US Airways Flight 1549 in January 2009, forcing the plane to land on the Hudson River, fortunately with no loss of (human) life. The geese that collided with the airliner were migrating geese, not resident geese who remain in the city year-round.

Did you know that the now-prolific Canada goose was nearly extinct in the 1900s? They were brought to New York from the midwest in an effort to rebuild the population.

The NY Audubon Society has appalled supporters in its tepid endorsement of the "euthanasia" program. Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States has been an outspoken critic.

For further HSUS information about the killing of Canada geese, and suggestions for making your voice heard, please see:

http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2010/hsus_urges_halt_to_goose_killing_071410.html

http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/geese/qa/goose_roundup_faq.html

For a sense of what is lost, read Bernd Heinrich's The Geese of Beaver Bog... "Heinrich's lyric writing and attentive observations make the goose world come alive... A pure joy." Los Angeles Times

Photo: Mark Moran