Save The Geese... from the Velociraptors?

This goose and gosling are from Weehawken, New Jersey and hopefully a safe enough distant from New York.

Sometime in July, vegansaurus! (a blog I like to frequent) posted a story about the Canada geese in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Nearly 400 geese had been gassed "for air safety". If you need more of a reason to read up on the topic:

"According to local teacher and my new favorite person, Seth Kaplan: 'It’s really important to remember that the Canada geese that collided with Flight 1549 were tested by researchers at the Smithsonian and they were not populations that lived in our area,' and they say most of the Prospect Park geese are probably residents."
(vegansaurus!)

Then, almost a month later, this shows up on The Daily What:



Who is running Prospect Park right now? No, really... mass extermination plus bullshit signs equals... what?

Anyway, on August 12, 2010, there is going to be a demonstration at the New York City Hall from 12-1pm. RSVP now!! Read a better description of it at Supervegan.

Update (8/12/2010): In my haste to post something about the City Hall demonstration and my velociraptor confusion, I failed to mention a few important points about Goosageddon 2010.

From this New York Times article:

"Following the landing of U.S. Airways Flight #1549 on the Hudson River last year, New York officials crafted a plan to address the threat posed to aviation by Canada geese. Their plan, whose details were not available until now, calls for reducing the number of geese in New York State by two-thirds."

So from an estimated population of 250,000 Canada geese, they would like to whittle it down to about 85,000 geese.

This is from the nine-page report on New York’s plan to eradicate Canada geese on or around New York City airports:

“At John F. Kennedy International Airport there have been 676 reported bird strikes from January 2004 to December 2008. Five of these strikes involved Canada geese of which 1 strike caused substantial damage and 1 strike caused minor damage to the aircraft. At LaGuardia Airport there have been 410 reported bird strikes from January 2004 to December 2008. Four of these strikes involved Canada geese of which 1 strike caused minor damage.”

After 9 Canada geese strikes out of 1086 bird strikes in four years, three of which actually caused damage, government officials drafted a nine page report on gassing and double-bagging these clearly destructive animals!? I'm pretty sure this doesn't help rationalize it.

Because a $60 million aircraft was destroyed, 170,000 Canada geese must die.

And it’s not just New York. New Jersey also has a troubled relationship with the Canada geese recently “euthanizing” 133 geese in Mount Laurel, NJ.