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Health & Fitness

First They Came for the Eggs ...

Prospect Park's goslings may be in danger if the city decides to gas the geese again.

These beautiful new Prospect Park goslings (pictured here) may not survive through to the end of June. 

Not because of all the abandoned fishing tackle that often hooks into the skin of wandering wildlife or because of the bacteria brought by excess of weekender garbage that often litters the area, but because until June 30 Mayor Bloomberg and the Port Authority’s extermination contract with the USDA is still active. If that isn’t bad enough, there is talk of a new one in the works. 

For those of us who love our geese, our wildlife, our goslings – this is bad news.  If ever there was a time to make our voices heard – that time is now.

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Last year it was the USDA's Orwellian-named, "Wildlife Services" Division that rounded up our resident geese and goslings in the middle of the night. Over 400 were slaughtered with no public notice – no consensus from the community. The geese were lured with food, bound and tied, and then gassed to death

What’s even more disturbing – last year Councilmember Letitia James and Senator Eric Adams spoke eloquently at several large rallies and protests on behalf of the geese and of their love for the park … yet the USDA appears to be beyond the realm of community outcry.

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Any day, any night, any minute, these babies could be bound & gassed. Oh joy. 

It’s bad enough when natural disasters wreak holy havoc, horrific enough when man-made disasters pump tons of black oil into our pristine oceans impacting the entire eco-system, but the USDA’s unrelenting all-out man-made attack on our wildlife is unconscionable.  What’s more hilarious still, the public park’s website adamantly states that harassment of wildlife, described as the intention to “molest, chase, wound or trap” is strictly prohibited. Pro bono anyone?

But in addition to the Federal attack, the Prospect Park Alliance has taken it upon itself to effect a “Goose management plan” – terrifying the pitiful remaining 22 geese and goslings with barking dogs. PPA’s almost hysterical “management program” sends men dressed in official uniforms to grub their way through the tall grass in search of one or two nests that have managed to survive.  Once these nests are uncovered, hired hands swoop in on the eggs – scaring away the parents who watch from a distance as the men pour excessive amounts of corn oil into the nest – a technique called “addling” – effectively suffocating the emerging fetus.

Is this really happening?  What does the PPA have against geese?  Oh, maybe the cost of maintaining the grass or the interruption that some of the baseball teams have had to contend with when a pair of geese accidentally occupies home base? 

What ever happened to the concept that the park was a sanctuary? A place of peace?  One of the rare environments where the pulse and the grind of the city stopped and the song of birds began?  The joy of children who experience nature for the first time?  Who cast their eyes on the wonder of goslings such as these.

And, if the love of wildlife is not something everyone relates to, it should be noted that – as Prospect Park is a public/private partnership – it is everyone’s hard-earned TAX PAYER DOLLARS at work.  Is this really our priority during a recession of cutbacks in children, family and senior services? 

But it’s not just happening in Prospect Park: last year, the New York Times reported that according to information from the USDA, over 170,000 geese on the East Coast must go.

And according to Deborah Ah’s blog:

250,000 geese is the number NY "officials" claim the goose population of NY is without stating methodology... and they cite a source, "Atlantic Flyway Council" for this number from 1999, with utterly no explication of who this group is or how they get their numbers.  The Times then used this "nine page report" as justification for the plan to "eliminate" 170,000 geese--again, an eye-popping number with no substantiation, but more eye-popping, the end of the report says, "USDA, APHIS-WS will prepare a report by August 31 summarizing Canada geese removed from properties within five miles of airports in New York City." (p. 7)

This, after numerous CityBlog articles cited a six to nine mile ranges, and decided Prospect Park was in the 9 mile range...but the tagged birds were found as far south as VA, which proves they migrate and should be under the protection of the Migratory Bird Act.

Furthermore, The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1916 has been severely undercut by the Supreme Court since 2001, with devastating consequences to waterfowl, and states attempts to remedy what the federal law no longer wishes to protect.

It is stunning what a decline our education system is in if none of our elected officials or city managers have a basic concept of population viability, or confer with biologists who can ensure policy is appropriate--Geese mate for life, and the remaining ones may not find new mates.

The so-called "AVIAN" threat has been debunked time and again by experts who have long complained that union-busting and other cost-saving measures are the predominant threat to passenger safety. The majority of crashes and disasters are overwhelmingly due to malfunctioning equipment, doors coming unhinged and blowing out, even the entire tops of aircraft blowing off the body of the plane. No bird in sight.  In fact, bird "strikes" are fairly common and airplanes in good working condition are designed to withstand them.

The New York Times reported on a sixth air traffic controller found sleeping on the job.  The Federal Aviation Administration said it would change scheduling practices for air traffic controllers to combat excessive sleepiness, often a result of stacking shifts too closely.

And according to a report issued by the FAA’s own Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, entitled, “Human Error & General Aviation Accidents,” thousands of unsafe acts committed by pilots result in “literally thousands of unique ways to crash an airplane.”

And in a segment produced by MSNBC entitled “Just How Safe Are The Skies?  Better Buckle Up!,” Peter Greenberg reported, “A downward economy, an aging aircraft fleet, airlines in, or flirting with, bankruptcy; add to that an air traffic control system that's understaffed, underequipped, and a federal regulatory agency recently called on the carpet for not properly performing maintenance inspections. Is it the recipe for a perfect aviation-disaster storm?”

In the February 2009 cover story of NY Magazine, Capt. Chesley Sullenberger himself talked about the impact that cost-cutting has had on the airline industry.  It appears that "bird strikes" are the dog and pony show used to divert and distract and confuse. We know that birds have been flying peacefully and co-existing with aviation for decades – why suddenly – is every wild bird a fatal threat to our good society?

And – pardon me for asking – if air safety truly is dependent on never encountering any bird’s mid-air, logic would demand that every wild bird should be exterminated.  

And in that case, should the millions of us who belong to nature conservation groups like the Audubon Society, World Wildlife Fund,  HSUS and the NRDC all be passing the hat to help fund the next USDA massive kill?

What about the hundreds that gathered in March to join hands across the Prospect Park Lake in symbolic gesture to protect our remaining birds?  

"First they came…" is a famous statement attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The text of the quotation is usually presented roughly as follows:

"First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak for me."

The USDA is now announcing its plan to annihilate one million Canada geese just on the East Coast.  When I see just these four little goslings, I feel like I am ready to take a bullet for all four.  What can I possibly do to protect one million?

What can you do?

Call 311.  Send an email to Mayor Bloomberg. Call your local representative.  Call the Prospect Park Alliance. Call the Central Park Conservancy.  Join the “For the Love of the Geese in Prospect Park” Facebook Page.  Join the “Call of the Canada Geese” Facebook page.  Join forces.

Now is the time.  Before it’s too late.  Tell them to end the contract with Wildlife Services.  End their contracts with Goosebusters.  Call off the dogs.  Protect our wildlife.  Maybe, together, we can turn back the tide.

Editor's Note: All Park Slope Patch blog posts are expressly the opinions of the bloggers. They do not reflect the general view point of Park Slope Patch.

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