NYC Protest Against Geese Removal – Is Gassing the Way to Go?

June 17, 2009 | Posted in: Travel Safety,Travel Tips,US Airways

There was a small but passionate protest in New York City yesterday – against the new airport “goose-removal” program. Federal and local authorities will remove some 2,000 Canada geese – okay, they’re going to remove and kill them – in the wake of the “Miracle on the Hudson” landing which occurred after geese were sucked into the engines of a US Airways jet. But is this the way to go? Yes, geese and other birds are a very real danger to aircraft. But the anti-goose grab activists say, this is an inhumane – and, ineffective plan – because the geese that ruined Capt. Sully’s day were migratory birds – while the targeted geese are resident wildfowl. A Port Authority spokesman responded with, “Safety for people before peace for geese.” A New York Times story included a photo of a man carrying a sign reading, “Pilot Against Goose Gassing”. One of my employees said the entire protest took her back to the ’60′s, especially this chant: “How many geese did you gas today?” Readers, any thoughts?

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3 Responses to “NYC Protest Against Geese Removal – Is Gassing the Way to Go?”

1. Save The Geese Project says:

   June 17, 2009 at 10:38 pm

   The gassing of geese is not only a waste of taxpayers money, but a sick, inhumane plan to fool the residents of New York into thinking that the city is doing something to help protect it’s airports.

   Please visit the website to below to learn more about how you can help to save the geese from their lethal fate.

   http://www.myspace.com/savethegeeseproject
2. Adria says:

   June 18, 2009 at 10:08 pm

   I think there are other ways to take care of the Geese in a more Humane way.Even the Humane SOciety has given some suggestions which were dismissed. I am from Canada and totally disgusted with what is going on and now I am finding out this is not the first time its happened in the U.S. Cruel and Barbaric. People need to write to the mayor of NYC
   http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html
3. Arlene Steinberg says:

   August 2, 2009 at 3:52 pm

   The killing of these geese IS horrifying, on many levels:
   1. It is unnecessary; the resident geese who rarely fly more than 100 feet are not the ones colliding with planes.
   2. As for the migrating birds hitting planes, what should humans do, kill every bird in the world? We are in THEIR air space, and clearly the solution lies in technology – bird radar, and the mapping of migration routes. In fact, the Israelis have done this with what is probably the busiest bird migration corridor in the world – Asia/Middle East/Africa – and they cut their bird strikes by 88%, without killing birds. They were smart enough to realize that humans are not going to change birds’ migrations which have evolved over thousands of years, so they work their flight plans around the birds. The plan is so successful other countries are using it. Except us, of course.
   3. NY has wanted to off their goose population for years – just do a little Googling and you will see this plan going back for long time. The NY government never listens to the groups like Geesepeace that have non-lethal goose control solutions – they meet with them, but never implement any of their suggestions. The Miracle on the Hudson just gave that little creep Mayor Bloomberg the bogus justification he wanted.
   4. Really, REALLY stupid to build airports right next to wildlife refuges.
   5. To the people who say “well, it’s not so bad to kill the geese if they at least feed them to the homeless” — first, the shelters will refuse the carcasses because they were poisoned by gas. Second, what makes you think Bloomberg and his cronies care about the homeless? If they could gas them and be rid of them, they’d do that, too. (His latest moronic plan is to give the homeless a one-way plane ticket to whereever a relative will vouch for them; does he not realize in many cases the homeless are homeless by choice, have mental issues and have given their families the slip many times). And thirdly, there is no more twisted ethics than trying to contrive something “good” out of something inherently evil.
   6. Canada geese were nearly extinct from over-hunting, and were brought back by the creation of attractive habitats. The resident geese have everything they want in those habitats so they lost the migrating instinct. This is yet again, another example of many, where human interference and/or manipulation has created a problem we don’t know how to solve. We are unable to control our own population, so how do we think we can control animals?
   7. Gassing the geese is particularly inhumane – ducks and geese, i.e. diving birds, should never be killed using carbon dioxide because they possess physiological mechanisms that enable them to withstand hypercapnia and can therefore take a comparatively long time to die. This is a horrible death for them – it is inhumane and is further proof that the USDA goons don’t know what they are doing. I don’t know how these people sleep at night.
   8. You just don’t kill something because it poops. When some genius figures out a way to run cars on goose droppings, geese will suddenly become solid gold. Nothing is ruining the environment worse than man. When the end of civilization comes, it will not be because of a goose or pigeon – no bird caused global warming, war, STDs, overfishing the oceans, etc. The fact is, there are too damn many people, and when we come into conflict with the natural world, all we know how to do is kill whatever gets in our way or inconveniences us. The way we so carelessly kill animals sends a chilling message about the value of life to our children. There’s a huge disconnect with the natural world that has dangerous implications. If you don’t learn to care about something, you will never protect and preserve it.